While the rest of us slept in, Linus Torvalds kept busy over the weekend, announcing an all new Linux kernel release.

Linux 3.16 is now stable and out there. Wherever there really is.

Typing from his treadmill desk (or possibly not, but the mental image is too humorous to resist) the Linux founder announced the latest stable release with relief, explaining:

“While 3.16 looked a bit iffy for a while things cleared up nicely, and there was no reason to do extra release candidates like I feared just a couple of weeks ago.”

What’s New In Linux 3.16?

Codenamed ‘Shuffling Zombie Juror’, Linux 3.16 arrives on the scene with a bunch of key improvements in tow. These range from complicated and integral sounding – e.g., ‘unified control group hierarchy‘ – to the more user-accessible, like new and improved drivers.

Thanks to the diligent work by Linux Weekly News and Phoronix (plus a good ol’ google on the Linux Kernel Mailing List) we’ve put together a list of some of notable changes featuring in this release.

Multi-platform ARM kernel image for multiple ARM SoCs (incl. Exynos)

Various support for Nvidia Tegra K1 and Kepler GPU

Nokia N900 modem driver included in mainline

Initial Intel Cherryview Support

Improvements to Sixaxis and DualShock 4 controller support

Sony-HID driver improvements

RMI driver for Synaptics touchpad

Saitek RAT7 gaming mouse fix

Dell FreeFall driver

80 changes and fixes to Btrfs filesystem

New audio drivers for misc. Cirrus, Realtek and Analog devices.

Tegra HD-audio HDMI support

Installing Linux 3.16

It’s out, which means you want it. Well, hold your horses. Linux 3.16 is likely to form the basis of the Ubuntu Linux Kernel in 14.10, which is due later this year. The 14.10 kernel will also be provided to LTS users through a point release update shortly after.

If you’re impatient and — most importantly — skilled enough, you can install Linux 3.16 in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS using the corresponding installers for your system listed in the Mainline kernel archive maintained by Canonical.

Visit the Ubuntu Kernel Archive Website