14 DAY TRIAL // Last month, we discussed here the fact that we'll be covering the entire development cycle of the upcoming Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) operating system, which is expected to launch sometime in April 2017.
At the end of October, we reported that the first daily build ISO images were pushed to the main server for early adopters and people who love to test drive bleeding-edge Ubuntu releases, as well as the fact that the Ubuntu Kernel Team was currently tracking the Linux 4.9 kernel series for Ubuntu 17.04.
As the development cycle of the Linux 4.9 kernel series advanced quite fast, it also looks like the recently released RC5 milestone has landed in the proposed channel of Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus), and you can install it right now if you're brave enough. If not, you should wait until next week when it lands in the stable repositories.
"We have uploaded our first v4.9 based Zesty kernel to the archive: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/4.9.0-1.2," reads the latest Ubuntu Kernel Team newsletter. "It is currently based on v4.9-rc5. We will continue to rebase and upload as newer RCs are released. For now, please test and let us know your results."
As Linux kernel 4.9 might be the next LTS (Long Term Support) branch, we believe that it might just be the right choice for Ubuntu 17.04, but it's also very likely that the final release of Zesty Zapus could ship with Linux kernel 4.10, which should enter development two weeks after the release of Linux kernel 4.9 on December 4, 2016.