14 DAY TRIAL // The fourth maintenance update to the Linux 4.10 kernel series arrived this weekend with various improvements to some of the supported filesystems and architectures, as well as updated drivers.
Announced by renowned maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman on the Linux kernel mailing list, Linux 4.10.4 is now the most advanced stable kernel version available to date for Linux-based operating systems, and it is recommended to all users. According to the appended shortlog, a total of 55 files have been changed in this update, with 463 insertions and 317 deletions.
"I'm announcing the release of the 4.10.4 kernel. All users of the 4.10 kernel series must upgrade. The updated 4.10.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.10.y and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git;a=summary," said Greg Kroah-Hartman.
MIPS and PowerPC improvements, updated USB drivers
Coming only five days after Linux kernel 4.10.3, the Linux 4.10.4 kernel is a small release, and among the changes implemented we can mention various improvements to the MIPS, PowerPC (PPC), s390, and ARM hardware architectures, a fix for an issue with the EXT4 file system, as well as lots of updates to the USB drivers. The I2C, TTY, media, GPU (Intel i915), iiO, MD, InfiniBand, MTD, and PCI drivers also received some fixes.
If you're using a GNU/Linux distribution powered by a kernel from the Linux 4.10 series, we recommend that you update to version 4.10.4 as soon as possible, or as soon as it lands in the stable repos. We're also urging OS vendors to download the Linux kernel 4.10.4 source tarball from kernel.org or via our website, compile and tweak it for their supported architectures, and distribute it to their users immediately.