Immediately after informing the Linux community about the availability of Linux kernel 4.6.1 and Linux kernel 4.5.6, Greg Kroah-Hartman published details about the release of Linux kernel 4.4.12 LTS.

Linux 4.4 is currently the latest and most advanced long-term supported kernel branch, which is being used by default in numerous LTS operating systems, including the popular Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus). Now the latest version is 4.4.12, a major update that brings changes to a total of 98 files, with 1,171 insertions and 477 deletions.

"I'm announcing the release of the 4.4.12 kernel. All users of the 4.4 kernel series must upgrade," said Greg Kroah-Hartman. "The updated 4.4.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.4.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."

Looking at the appended shortlog, we can notice that Linux kernel 4.4.12 LTS includes improvements to the ARM64 (AArch64), x86, MIPS, and ARM instruction set architectures. There are also lots of updated drivers, in particular for things like USB, ACPI, Crypto, Bluetooth, InfiniBand, CLK, TTY, IRQ Chip, MMC, MTD, TTY, SCSI, Thunderbolt, MFD, MCB, and networking.

But it looks like there are also various small enhancements to the CIFS, Btrfs, HPFS, and EXT4 filesystems, as well as the usual core kernel fixes. Therefore, if you are using a GNU/Linux operating system powered by a kernel from the Linux 4.4 LTS series, you need to update to version 4.4.12 as soon as possible. The sources of Linux kernel 4.4.12 LTS are also available for download now from Softpedia or kernel.org.