There’s currently no word on Linux kernel 4.8 being the next LTS (Long Term Support) branch, but it looks like it’s on its way to becoming one of the biggest releases that have been announced lately. The merge window is now officially closed, and the first Release Candidate development milestone of the Linux 4.8 kernel changes no less than 10787 files, with 612208 insertions and 272098 deletions. If you’re wondering what’s new in the Linux kernel 4.8 RC1 release, we can tell you that over 20% of the patch is documentation updates, 60% are the updated drivers, this time for things like GPU, sound, media (including a driver for the touchscreen controller found on the Microsoft Surface 3 tablet computer, and networking, and 15% are architecture updates, in particular for ARM, PowerPC (PPC), x86, MIPS, and s390.