We have to admit that we didn’t expect to see the Linux 4.9-rc3 kernel so soon, but it’s good news if you’re an early adopter and just can’t wait to see what goodies the kernel developers have prepared for the final release of Linux kernel 4.9, which should land at the end of the first week of December 2016. One of the biggest changes in today’s Linux kernel 4.9 RC3 release is a fix for a bug in the new virtually mapped stacks. According to Linus Torvalds, the Linux kernel 4.9 RC3 release appears to be bigger than the second Release Candidate announced last week, as expected, which means that this kernel branch might receive the eighth RC too. And it’s bigger because there are lots of fixes and improvements in many areas, such as the XFS file system, drivers, architectures, etc.