Linux Kernel 3.18.9 Is Now an LTS(Long-Term Support) Release

[renjith]

Today we have some good news for all users of the Linux 3.18 kernel, as its status has been changed to LTS (Long-Term Support) on March 11, which means that it will be supported with patches for at least two more years from today.

Of course, this also means that some operating systems will stick to this kernel instead of upgrading to the current stable release, Linux kernel 3.19.1 at the moment of writing this article. For example, the famous Arch Linux distribution still uses a kernel from the Linux 3.18 series.

Greg Kroah-Hartman officially announced the ninth maintenance release of the Linux kernel 3.18 a few days ago, on March 7, along with Linux kernels 3.19.1, 3.14.35 LTS, and 3.10.71 LTS. All these kernel releases included approximately the same enhancements.

“I'm announcing the release of the 3.18.9 kernel. All users of the 3.18 kernel series must upgrade. The updated 3.18.y git tree can be browsed at http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/g ... ;a=summary,” Greg Kroah-Hartman said in the mailinglist announcement.

Linux kernel 3.18.9 includes numerous architecture and file system changes

Linux kernel 3.18.9 includes updates for the ARM, ARM64, MIPS, PowerPC, s390, ARC, and x86 architectures, as well as numerous updated and new drivers for USB, Xen, SCSI, Wireless, etc. In addition, it also fixes some issues with the Btrfs, NFS, XFS, OCFS2, and JFFS2 file systems, and adds networking and sound enhancements.

While with every kernel announcement users are urged to upgrade to the new release as soon as possible, we strongly suggest to wait for your distribution vendor to publish updated kernel package in the main software repositories. As an alternative, you can download the Linux kernel 3.18.9 LTS sources right now via Softpedia or directly from kernel.org.