14 DAY TRIAL // Another week has passed, and it's once again Sunday afternoon here in the US, which means that Linus Torvalds has prepared yet another RC (Release Candidate) build of the upcoming Linux 4.5 kernel.
We've told you last Sunday, when Mr. Torvalds released the third maintenance build of Linux kernel 4.5, that things looked "slightly bigger than expected," but in this week's Release Candidate, things look fairly normal, and nothing stands out in particular. However, the size of Linux kernel 4.5 RC4 is approximately the same as the RC3 build.
According to Linus Torvalds, Linux kernel 4.5 Release Candidate 4 ships with under two-thirds of updated drivers, in particular for things like DRM, SCSI, networking, sound, and target, architecture updates (mostly ARM, MIPS, and ARC). There are also some core kernel and crypto changes, as well as improvements to the networking stack.
"It's Valentine's day, so here I am, making a valentine for everybody in the form of the usual RC release," said Linus Torvalds. "So in between romancing your significant other, go out and test. I'll be traveling next week, but will have my laptop and if things stay as calm and normal as they've been so far, there should be no issues."
Linux kernel 4.5 RC4 is now ready for some love
Being Valentine's Day here in the US and all that, we believe that some of you might hurry to take this new Release Candidate build of the upcoming Linux 4.5 kernel for a test drive, as you already have plans for your loved ones. However, for those of you who want to give it a quick try, you can grab the sources of Linux kernel 4.5 RC4 right here.
As always, please try to keep in mind that an RC (Release Candidate) version is a pre-release build, which means that you should not install it on your production-ready machine or replace your existing, stable kernel packages with it. The final release of Linux kernel 4.5 should be unveiled sometime in March 2016.