Linus Torvalds announced a few hours ago the immediate availability for download and testing of the Linux kernel 4.0 RC3 (Release Candidate) which, according to Linus, is smaller than the previous RC version. However, it includes a fair amount of improvements, bug fixes and patches.

According to Linus’ announcement, two thirds of the changes in Linux kernel 4.0 RC3 are drivers, and the rest are architecture updates, file system improvements, updated documentation, as well as better networking. This release includes new drivers for GPUs, sound, networking, staging, and USB. Among the updated filesystems, we can mention Btrfs and NFS. Lastly, the x86, PowerPC, ARM, and ARC architectures received improvements.

“Back on track with a Sunday afternoon release schedule, since there was nothing particularly odd going on this week, and no last-minute bugs that I knew of and wanted to get fixed holding things up. Size-wise, this is also fairly normal, not as tiny as rc2. Easily explained by getting the fixes from both David and Greg (since networking and drivers tend to be the two single biggest parts),” says Linus Torvalds in the mailinglist announcement.

Those of you who wish to test the third Release Candidate (RC) version of the upcoming and highly anticipated Linux kernel 4.0 can download the source package right now from Softpedia. However, please keep in mind that it is an unstable release that should not be deployed on production machines where stability is extremely important.