Comment 11 for bug 1667920

The 4.4.41 version you linked to exhibits the same behaviour as 4.4.0-66 (and 4.8.17, which I've also installed manually): lets me log in, but then freezes immediately.

---

Another bit of info, in case it helps:

I've also tried booting directly in tty mode via

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="3"

and uncommented

GRUB_TERMINAL=console

in /etc/default/grub

In that mode, 4.4.0-63 up to 4.4.0-66 as well as 4.8.17 behave very similarly: they give me an unfrozen login shell. I can enter my username and password, whereupon I get a trace (wall of text) I'm not qualified to make sense of and a freeze.