14 DAY TRIAL // The Linux 4.2 kernel series just got its first maintenance release, as renowned kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced a few minutes ago on the official mailing list of the project.
Looking at the appended shortlog, we can notice that Linux kernel 4.2.1 brings all sorts of goodies, starting with improvements to the ARM, x86, PowerPC (PPC), Xtensa, and s390 hardware architectures, various fixes for the Ceph, EXT4, GFS2, HFS, HFS+, HPFS, OCFS2, OverlayFS, ReiserFS, and XFS filesystems, and continuing with networking and sound enhancements.
There are also numerous updated drivers in Linux kernel 4.2.1, especially for things like ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface), ATA, CLK, Crypto, GPU (mostly AMD Radeon and Intel i915), HID, iiO, MD, PCI, SPI, TTY, and USB. In numbers, the first point release of Linux kernel 4.2 changes 144 files with 1,252 insertions and 602 deletions.
"I'm announcing the release of the 4.2.1 kernel. All users of the 4.2 kernel series must upgrade," says Greg Kroah-Hartman. "The updated 4.2.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.2.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."
All users of Linux kernel 4.2 must upgrade as soon as possible
All users of the Linux 4.2 kernel branch are urged to upgrade to the newly released Linux kernel 4.2.1 maintenance version as soon as it hits the default software repositories of their GNU/Linux operating systems. Experienced users can update right now by downloading the sources and compile the kernel by hand.
With this announcement, we're also urging GNU/Linux distribution vendors to download Linux kernel 4.2.1 right now from either Softpedia or the kernel.org website and start updating the kernel packages of their OSes. For the curious ones, please check the diff from Linux kernel 4.2.