Linux Kernel 4.4.47 LTS Improves Mellanox, Renesas and Broadcom Ethernet Drivers

Just like Linux kernel 4.9.8, the Linux 4.4.47 LTS kernel is here only two days after its previous point release, in this case Linux kernel 4.4.46 LTS, and, according to the appended shortlog, it’s yet another small patch that changes a total of 22 files, with 141 insertions and 55 deletions. The patch includes only networking improvements, both for core networking and the drivers stack. Linux kernel 4.4.47 LTS is all about networking changes with various improvements to the Mellanox, Broadcom, and Renesas Ethernet drivers (memory leak fixes), the Broadcom BCM63xx PHY driver, the Realtek RTL8152/RTL8153 USB Ethernet driver, and a couple of other USB drivers. On the other hand, the networking stack was updated with AX.25, IPv4, IPv6, Open vSwitch, Bridge, and DSA (Distributed Switch Architecture) changes.