Linus Torvalds finally announced the release of the Linux Kernel 4.7. He wrote on lkml.org:
So, after a slight delay due to my travels, I’m back, and 4.7 is out.
Despite it being two weeks since rc7, the final patch wasn’t all that big, and much of it is trivial one- and few-liners. There’s a couple of network drivers that got a bit more loving. Appended is the shortlog since rc7 for people who care: it’s fairly spread out, with networking and some intel Kabylake GPU fixes being the most noticeable ones. But there’s random small noise spread all over.
Kernel 4.7 release highlights:
- open source support for Radeon RX 480 GPUs
- async discard support by the core block code
- support for upgrading firmware using the EFI Capsule
- New Linux Security Module (LSM) “LoadPin”
- support for generating virtual USB Device Controllers in USB/IP
- numerous drivers updates and lots of bug-fixes.
How to Install / Upgrade Kernel 4.7 in Ubuntu:
Not recommended for common users, unless there’s must upgrade reasons and you know exactly what you’re doing and how to solve problems.
Ubuntu Kernel Team has made the binary packages for the new kernel release, available for download at the link below:
Download Kernel 4.7 Packages [.deb]
Depends on your OS type, grab and install the packages below one by one:
- linux-headers-4.7.0-xxxxxx_all.deb
- linux-headers-4.7.0-xxx-generic(/lowlatency)_xxx_amd64(/i386).deb
- linux-image-4.7.0-xxx-generic(/lowlatency)_xxx_amd64(/i386).deb
Select generic for common system, and lowlatency for a low latency system (e.g. for recording audio), amd64 for 64bit system and i386 for 32bit system.
You may also download these .deb packages in terminal / command console by running following commands one by one:
For 64-bit system:
cd /tmp/
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.7/linux-headers-4.7.0-040700_4.7.0-040700.201607241632_all.deb
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.7/linux-headers-4.7.0-040700-generic_4.7.0-040700.201607241632_amd64.deb
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.7/linux-image-4.7.0-040700-generic_4.7.0-040700.201607241632_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
For 32bit system:
cd /tmp/
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.7/linux-headers-4.7.0-040700_4.7.0-040700.201607241632_all.deb
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.7/linux-headers-4.7.0-040700-generic_4.7.0-040700.201607241632_i386.deb
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.7/linux-image-4.7.0-040700-generic_4.7.0-040700.201607241632_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
Finally restart your computer.
Uninstall Kernel 4.7:
For any reason you want to remove this Kernel, start/restart your machine and select boot with the previous kernel in Grub2 -> Advanced menu. Then remove the 4.7 kernel via Ubuntu Tweak, or just follow this tutorial.
