14 DAY TRIAL // Linus Torvalds has just revealed that the third Release Candidate for the 4.3 branch of the Linux kernel has been released and is now available for download and testing.
Linus has been quick this weekend and released the new RC a few hours before the usual launch window. You might think that it's a smaller version or that there was something wrong with it, but that's not the case. Everything seems to be going according to plan and the development cycle for the kernel is on track.
It's impossible to say in advance how long it will take for a particular branch to become stable, but it's usually around eight weeks. The team and Linus don't have a fix launch date because they can't know if any problems will pop up. It doesn't happen all that often for the project to not get any important features and each branch has the potential to break stuff. Until everything is working as it should, and until everything is tested properly, Linus doesn't take any risks.
Go forth and test Linux kernel 4.3 RC3
If you like getting the bleeding edge of the Linux kernel, then there is nothing better than the latest Release Candidates. Even if it's marked as an RC, it doesn't mean that it's all that unstable. Sure enough, it's not meant to be used on production machines, but most of the time you won't feel that it's an RC.
"So as usual, rc3 is actually bigger than rc2 (fixes are starting to trickle in), but nothing particularly alarming stands out. Everything looks normal: the bulk is drivers (all over, but gpu and networking are the biggest parts) and architecture updates. There's also networking and filesystem updates, along with documentation. Go get it," wrote Linus Torvalds in his regular announcement.
As usual, you can download Linux kernel 4.3 RC3 from Softpedia, but please keep in mind that this is the source, and it has to be compiled. Don't use it on a production machine.