It also includes updated USB and IOMMU drivers

Dec 2, 2016 15:35 GMT  ·  By

A few moments ago, Greg Kroah-Hartman announced the release of the twelfth maintenance update of the Linux 4.8 kernel series, as well as the availability of Linux kernel 4.4.36 LTS.

Only five days have passed since the release of Linux kernel 4.8.11, which most GNU/Linux distributions that are using the latest and most advanced Linux 4.8 branch did not even receive, as is the case of Solus and OpenSuSE Tumbleweed, and Linux kernel 4.8.12 is already here, which means that OS maintainers need to re-compile the new version, tweak it for their supported architectures, and push it to the repos.

However, according to the appended shortlog and the diff since Linux kernel 4.8.11, it looks like Linux kernel 4.8.12 changes a total of 52 files, with 390 insertions and 204 deletions, which means that it's not a major update. There are mostly architecture improvements for PA-RISC, PowerPC (PPC), Tile, and x86, updated drivers, and a few networking changes.

"I'm announcing the release of the 4.8.12 kernel. All users of the 4.8 kernel series must upgrade," said Greg Kroah-Hartman. "The updated 4.8.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.8.y and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git;a=summary."

Users of the Linux 4.8 kernel series are urged to update

DAX, IOMMU, MMC, SCSI, Intel PowerClamp Thermal, and USB are among the updated drivers included in the Linux 4.8.12 kernel release. The array-bounds warning has been hidden for the NFS file system, and the networking stack was updated with a couple of wireless improvements. It looks like there's also an AppArmor change for improved security, a few KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) changes, and a mm fix.

If you're using a GNU/Linux distribution powered by a kernel from the Linux 4.8 series, you are urged to update to today's Linux kernel 4.8.12 point release as soon as possible, or more precisely as soon as it lands in the stable repositories of your favorite operating system. OS vendors and power users can download the Linux 4.8.12 kernel source archive right now from kernel.org or via our website.