Linus Torvalds finally announced the stable release of Linux Kernel 3.17. He wrote on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (lkml.org):

So the past week was fairly calm, and so I have no qualms about releasing 3.17 on the normal schedule (as opposed to the optimistic “maybe I can release it one week early” schedule that was not to be).

Linus

What’s New in Linux Kernel 3.17:

• Radeon R9 290 “Hawaii” GPUs finally play nicely with the open-source AMD Linux driver.

• Microsoft Xbox One controller support.

• Improvements to the Sony SIXAXIS support

• Toshiba “Active Protection Sensor” Support, a driver to detect if Toshiba laptops are in a free-fall.

• New ARM hardware support: Rockchip RK3288 SoC, Allwinner A23 SoC, Allwinner A31 Hummingbird, Tegra30 Apalis board, Gumstix Pepper AM335x, and the AM437x TI evaluation board.

• Open-source NVIDIA driver improvements.

• DMA-BUF cross-device synchronization support

• Broadcom BCM7XXX-based board support

• ACPI 5.1 activity and other power management improvements.

• Audio support includes Wildcatpoint Audio DSP on Intel Broadwell Ultrabooks.

Install / Upgrade to Linux Kernel 3.17 in Ubuntu:

Ubuntu Kernel Team has made the binary packages, available for download in the link below:

Download Linux Kernel 3.17 (Deb)

You may first check out your OS type, 32-bit (i386) or 64-bit (amd64), then download and install the packages below in turn:

1. linux-headers-3.17.0-031700_xxx_all.deb
2. linux-headers-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.xxx_i386/amd64.deb
3. linux-image-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.xxx_i386/amd64.deb

For Ubuntu server that does not have a graphical session, you can download and install the kernel by running below commands one by one:

For 32-bit system, navigate to /tmp, download the debs and finally install them via below commands:

cd /tmp/

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-headers-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_i386.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-headers-3.17.0-031700_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-image-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_i386.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.17.0-*.deb linux-image-3.17.0-*.deb

For 64-bit system, run:

cd /tmp/

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-headers-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_amd64.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-headers-3.17.0-031700_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-image-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.17.0-*.deb linux-image-3.17.0-*.deb

When done, restart your computer.

Tip: If you’re using a proprietary video driver, you may need to re-build (or re-install) the driver to get it work with new kernel.

If for some reason, the new kernel does not work properly for you, reboot with the previous Kernel (Grub boot loader -> Advanced -> select previous kernel) and run below command to remove Linux Kernel 3.17:

sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.17.0-* linux-image-3.17.0-* && sudo update-grub

That’s it. Enjoy!