The new packages have landed in the repositories

Mar 5, 2015 10:21 GMT  ·  By

Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) is almost here and the developers have just upgraded the Linux kernel for the daily build. It's also the same branch that will be made available with the final version.

For the past several editions, Ubuntu systems have been shipping with the latest Linux kernel available at that time, and that's always a good thing. Unlike other distros, Ubuntu doesn't get a new branch of the Linux kernel after the official launch, with the exception of the point releases that are made for LTS editions of the operating system.

This basically means that Ubuntu versions released in between LTS editions will never go beyond the kernel they ship with and Ubuntu 15.04 is a perfect example for this. It will ship with a version of the Linux kernel from the 3.19 branch, but it also means that it won't get Linux kernel 4.0. You can still install that particular kernel, but that's usually a recipe for trouble. It might work just fine, but it's also quite possible to mess up everything.

Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) now has Linux kernel 3.19

This particular kernel has been in the testing PPA for some time and now it has finally landed in the repositories. That means that users who are running the daily build of Ubuntu 15.04 will get this important update.

"We have officially uploaded our v3.19 kernel for Vivid to the archive, ie. 3.19.0-7.7. Please test and let us know your results. This is also an early reminder that kernel freeze for Vivid is on Thurs Apr 9. If you have any patches which need to land for 15.04's release, please make sure to submit those sooner rather than later," wrote Canonical's Joseph Salisbury.

The Linux kernel freeze for Ubuntu 15.04 is expected to arrive on April 20, which is just one week before the actual launch. It's quite possible that a few more updates for the 3.19 will be implemented until then.

You can download the Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) daily build from Softpedia and give it a spin. It's still under development, but it's pretty stable.