These are a replacement for the development releases that were previously denoted by an odd minor version number.Īlthough these releases are specifically reserved for kernel developers so they can fix the reported issues and implement new features, you can also download and test these kernel review candidates if you want, but it's generally not recommended considering this is where most of the development happens. Review candidates (or 'rc' for short) are preview releases and pre-patch versions of the kernel that the developers need to patch to remove bugs and other issues. You might also notice some characters at the end of the version number, like rcX.

Therefore, the usage of even and odd minor version numbers for stable and production branches of the kernel became superfluous after the introduction of kernel version 4.0, and the first LTS release (4.1) in the 4.x series had an odd minor version number. This versioning scheme is similar to the one used between the 1.0 and 2.4 kernel releases.ĭue to advancements in version control systems, contributors could now seamlessly work on stable branches and add new features without accidentally busting the already-working, stable releases. Now, the kernel version is formed according to the syntax: a.b.c, where a, b, and c are the major release, minor release, and revision count, respectively. With Linux version 3.0, Linus dropped the fourth variable from the version number.

Makemkv linux kernel