14 DAY TRIAL // After informing us about the availability of the fifth maintenance update of the Linux 4.9 kernel series, which has recently become a long-term supported branch, Greg Kroah-Hartman is today announcing the availability of Linux 4.4.44 LTS.
If you're reading our regular reports on the Linux kernel, you should be aware of the fact that the Linux 4.4 kernel branch is a long-term support (LTS) one that should get security patches for one more year, until February 2018. This branch is currently available in several popular GNU/Linux distributions, including Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Alpine Linux, and Arch Linux, and Linux 4.4.44 LTS is now the most advanced release.
"I'm announcing the release of the 4.4.44 kernel. All users of the 4.4 kernel series must upgrade. The updated 4.4.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.4.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.
Linux 4.4.44 is a small patch with various x86 changes and updated drivers
Today's Linux 4.4.44 LTS kernel update comes only five days after the previous point release, namely Linux kernel 4.4.43 LTS, and according to the appended shortlog, it's a small patch addressing various x86 fixes related to the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) implementations, as well as a PowerPC (PPC) issue. There are other small improvements for the Btrfs, NFS, and OCFS2 filesystems, too.
Besides that, Linux kernel 4.4.44 LTS includes updated drivers, in particular for CPUFreq, Radeon, I2C, PINCTRL, TTY, and USB devices, and there's also the usual mm, tooling, and core kernel noise. If you're using a Linux-based operating system powered by a kernel from the long-term supported Linux 4.4 series, don't hesitate to update to version 4.4.44 as soon as it lands in the stable software repositories of your distribution.