The Ubuntu Linux kernel team has announced that the Linux kernel in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS has been upgraded to version 4.4, the latest stable release made available.

Linus Torvalds released a new stable version of the Linux kernel just a few days ago, and the Ubuntu developers have been quick to integrate it into the latest build of Ubuntu 16.04.

The team has been tracking the 4.4 branch for quite some time, and they had almost all of the RC versions, so it was only natural to get the stable 4.4 as soon as it made an appearance.

Linux kernel 4.4 is an LTS

The kernel developers and maintainers have started to do things a little bit differently and they have started to announce which version of the kernel will be an LTS before the launch. They usually did this after a few maintenance versions were already released, but knowing ahead of time helps developers who want to adopt an LTS for their distro.

The fact that Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) will be powered by an LTS kernel was a no-brainer, but it’s nice to finally see it happening. The next Linux kernel in line will most likely land in about two months, so the Ubuntu team wouldn’t have time to integrate it anyways.

“We have rebased our unstable kernel repo to v4.4 and will follow suit in our Xenial repository shortly and upload it to the archive. Please stay tuned,” Canonical’s Joseph Salisbury said in his regular newsletter.

The new kernel will remain in the unstable repos for a couple of weeks, and the team plans to release the new upgrade to the stable repos by the end of the month.

You can download the daily build of Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) and give it a spin. It’s still unstable and installing it on production machines is not recommended.

Via Softpedia.