Very early today, October 25, Linus Torvalds announced the release of the seventh and most probably the last RC (Release Candidate) build of the upcoming Linux 4.3 kernel.

According to Mr. Torvalds, things in Linux kernel 4.3 RC7 are no longer calm and small, as it would appear that because of numerous networking changes, this build is the biggest for this development cycle, which currently goes smoothly.

In addition to the many networking fixes, Linux kernel 4.3 Release Candidate 7 contains several other big landings, including, but not limited to, ARM architecture fixes, media, block layer and GPU improvements, and, of course, the usual driver updates.

"As already alluded to, next week is kernel summit, and with a lot of the core maintainers being busy in Seoul, I'm assuming things stay calm and unless anything odd happens, I'll do the final 4.3 next Sunday," said Linus Torvalds.

This being said, if things remain the way they are now, and considering the fact that most kernel maintainers, including Mr. Torvalds, are off to various events around the globe, the final release of Linux kernel 4.3 might land next week.

In the meantime, you can download and test Linux kernel 4.3 Release Candidate 7 right now from the kernel.org website or via Softpedia, just please try to keep in mind that this is a pre-release version, not suitable for production use.