The Ubuntu developers have published a new iteration of the Ubuntu Kernel Team Weekly Newsletter to inform all users of the world's most popular free operating system about the latest work done on the kernel packages of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

According to the developers, the current daily build of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) remains based on the Linux 4.2 kernel packages of the stable Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) operating system, while the latest and most advanced Linux 4.3 kernel is tracked on the master-next branch of the upcoming operating system. But in order for it to become default, the Ubuntu devs need to clean up more DKMS packages.

"Our Xenial master branch remains based on Wily's v4.2 kernel, currently at v4.2.3. Xenial master-next is at v4.3 and we’re still getting DKMS packages cleaned up against v4.3 before we upload to the archive. Our unstable repo is tracking the latest v4.4-rc2 release in parallel. We’ll eventually rebase both our Xenial master/master-next branches to v4.4 since that is our target kernel version for 16.04," said the devs.

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS will be based on Linux kernel 4.4

And now, for the big news, the Ubuntu Kernel Team has had the great pleasure of announcing that the final release of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system will be powered by the forthcoming Linux 4.4 kernel. At the moment of writing this article, they are tracking the development of Linux kernel 4.4, and the latest Linux kernel 4.4 RC2 release is now in the master/master-next branch.

As mentioned in some previous articles, there’s no doubt that Ubuntu 16.04 LTS won't be supported by a long-term kernel. So there you have it, Linux kernel 4.4 LTS will power the Xenial Xerus operating system. Next week, we will inform you, guys, if the Ubuntu developers have managed to upgrade the Linux 4.2 kernel packages to Linux kernel 4.3 or not.