Linus Torvalds has recently released kernel 4.9, the last big version of the kernel of 2016 and also one of the great versions of the kernel, at least at the code and compatibility level.
Kernel 4.9 is made up of more than 2 million lines of code, a record that so far Kernel 4.2 had with a million lines but that was mostly documentation. In this case Kernel 4.9 does not have so much documentation but they are lines of hard and pure code.
Kernel 4.9 is made up of new hardware that has been incorporated into the kernel as well as new drivers that will make the latest version of the kernel more complete than ever. To give you an idea, only the part of drivers and controllers occupy two thirds of the total Linux kernel.
The part of the code related to support exceeds two thirds of the total code
Regarding news, we can say that Kernel 4.9 has the latest free driver from AMD, AMDGPU, a driver that will manage all the hardware related to AMD and ATI cards. Raspberry Pi and Project Ara will be two other protagonists within this version of the kernel. In this case, Kernel 4.9 has Raspberry Pi support, something that surely many are waiting for and that will make more distributions reach this type of Free Hardware.
It has also been included a new subsystem called Greybus, a subsystem that takes advantage of the knowledge and advances that Project Ara has created regarding Virtual Reality to bring it to the Linux kernel. It is something curious that it may not have much impact on the end user but it will make the benefits of the Ara project reach the Gnu / Linux world in the future.
So far Kernel 4.9 can be obtained through the official Kernel page and gradually the developers of your distributions will include this new version, a very interesting version Do not you think?