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Linux Kernels 4.8.15 and 4.4.39 LTS Are Out with PowerPC and SPARC Improvements

Users are urged to update their systems as soon as possible

Dec 15, 2016 22:02 GMT  ·  By
Linux kernel 4.4.39 LTS and 4.8.15 released
   Linux kernel 4.4.39 LTS and 4.8.15 released

Renowned Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced today, December 15, 2016, the availability of the Linux kernel 4.8.15 and Linux kernel 4.4.39 LTS maintenance releases.

Arriving only five days after the previous point releases, namely Linux kernel 4.4.38 LTS and 4.8.14, the new maintenance updates bring various improvements and bug fixes across most of the components. However, they appear to be quite small, as Linux kernel 4.8.15 changes a total of 37 files, with 240 insertions and 139 deletions, and only 20 files have been changed in Linux kernel 4.4.39 LTS, with 129 insertions and 59 deletions.

"I'm announcing the release of the 4.8.15 kernel. All users of the 4.8 kernel series must upgrade," said Greg Kroah-Hartman in the release announcement for Linux kernel 4.8.15. "The updated 4.8.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.8.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."

Users of the Linux 4.4 LTS and 4.8 kernels must update immediately

According to their appended shortlogs and the diffs since the previous versions, Linux kernels 4.8.15 and 4.4.39 LTS are here to introduce a bunch of architecture updates, for PowerPC (PPC), SPARC, ARM64, x86, PA-RISC, and m68k, improve the ACPI, SCSI, crypto, DAX, and NVDIMM device drivers, add a couple of fixes to the Ceph and FUSE filesystems, as well as update the networking stack with B.A.T.M.A.N. Advanced and CAN changes.

Many GNU/Linux distributions are still using kernel packages from the Linux 4.8 and 4.4 LTS series, despite the fact that Linux kernel 4.9 is out, so you should update your system to Linux kernel 4.4.39 LTS and/or Linux kernel 4.8.15 as soon as they land in the stable software repositories of your favorite distro, or upgrade directly to Linux kernel 4.9, which might just be the next LTS (Long Term Support) branch. Either way, you can download these new builds right now from kernel.org.