Ubuntu Prepping Its 16.04 "Rolling HWE Kernel"

Similar to past Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) releases, Ubuntu 16.04.2 and beyond will feature hardware enablement kernels back-ported from newer Ubuntu releases in order to allow new hardware to work on these older LTS releases, but now the Xenial Xerus is switching to a concept of a "rolling HWE kernel."

Canonical's Leann Ogasawara describes the rolling HWE kernel as, "The biggest change is that we are moving to what we refer to as a "rolling HWE kernel" model. Essentially, consumers of an HWE kernel will automatically be upgraded to the next HWE kernel offered in subsequent point releases until reaching the final HWE Kernel offered in 16.04.5." So it's really not like a true rolling Linux kernel, just that you will automatically be upgraded to future HWE kernels with future LTS point releases. It's documented more at this Wiki page.

With Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS, Canonical is also adding the GA and HEW kernel options to the server images while the original GA kernel will still be the default on that front. Ubuntu 16.04.2 is scheduled to ship on 19 January and will use the kernel found in Ubuntu 16.10.

More details via this Ubuntu-announce message.