It was recently announced that the next LTS kernel will be Linux Kernel 4.9. This was announced by one of the heavyweights in the Linux world and one of its leading developers, the great Greg Kroah-Hartman.
The acronym LTS stands for Long Term Support. Software with long-term support has a much longer lifespan than standard support , making it ideal for people who don't like constantly updating their systems.
Although kernel version 4.9 may seem a long way off, this is not the case, as we are already on version 4.7. Between version 4.7 and version 4.9, we have version 4.8, which has already begun development and is scheduled for release around the end of September.
Following the usual kernel version development cycle, which lasts 2 months , we have the last week of November as the planned release date for kernel 4.9, with development starting around the beginning of October and lasting the usual 2 months.
Many popular distributions released around that time are expected to adopt this kernel. For example, very popular distributions like Ubuntu 16.10 and Fedora 25, among others, are expected to update their kernels. It is also likely that other distributions like Arch Linux will adopt this kernel, as well as other operating systems like Linux Mint, although there is no official confirmation.
For now, we have to make do with version 4.7, which has been included in operating systems like Arch Linux . Version 4.8 will be available in two months , followed by version 4.9 on the dates already mentioned.
We remind you that these are not fixed dates, as anything could happen and these dates could change. What is clear is that we are already eagerly awaiting the release of kernel 4.9 , even though we don't even have kernel 4.7 yet.