14 DAY TRIAL // Linus Torvalds announced over the weekend the availability of the final release of the Linux 4.17 kernel series, opening the merge window for the next kernel branch, Linux 4.18.
Even though Linus Torvalds promised us to release the Linux 5.0 kernel series once the Linux kernel code reaches 6 million Git objects, an achievement reached when the development cycle of the Linux 4.17 kernel kicked off last month, it looks like we have to wait a little longer for the big version change as the Linux creator announced the release of Linux 4.17 as the most advanced kernel series.
"No, I didn't call it 5.0, even though all the git object count numerology was in place for that. It will happen in the not _too_ distant future, and I'm told all the release scripts on kernel.org are ready for it, but I didn't feel there was any real reason for it," said Linus Torvalds. "I suspect that around 4.20 - which is I run out of fingers and toes to keep track of minor releases, and thus start getting mightily confused - I'll switch over.
What's new in Linux kernel 4.17
A bit smaller in size than the Linux 4.16 kernel series, Linux kernel 4.17 brings numerous updated and new drivers to support even more hardware components. In addition to driver updates, it also improves the networking stack, perf tooling, as well as supported file systems and architectures, such as the Andes NDS32 RISC-like architecture. However, Linux kernel 4.17 removes support for the Blackfin, CRIS, FR-V, M32R, Metag, MN10300, SCORE, and TILE architectures.
For AMD users, the Linux 4.17 kernel brings a bunch of enhancements to make their Linux experience more enjoyable, such as enablement of Display Code (DC) support in the AMDGPU driver, which is required for HDMI audio/sound, as well as AMD Radeon Vega/Raven display output, support for the upcoming AMD Radeon Vega 12 GPU, and better power management for the open-source AMDGPU graphics driver.
Among other noteworthy changes, we can mention support for the Nvidia Tegra Xavier processor, support for Intel's High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) digital copy protection, and support for the Intel Cannon Lake architecture. Linux kernel 4.17 is now available to download as a source tarball that you'll have to compile for your favorite GNU/Linux distribution from kernel.org, but we recommend waiting until the Linux 4.17.1 comes out before updating.
Now that Linux kernel 4.17 is out, the merge window for the next release, Linux kernel 4.18, is open for kernel developers to push their patches. The merge window will be open for two weeks, until June 17, when the first Release Candidate (RC) milestone should be ready for public testing. As for the Linux 5.0 kernel series, it looks like it's coming around the release of Linux kernel 4.20 at the end of November or mid-December 2018.