diff --git a/RELEASE_NOTES b/RELEASE_NOTES
index 898568a4e31..d6488fae95b 100644
--- a/RELEASE_NOTES
+++ b/RELEASE_NOTES
@@ -6,6 +6,36 @@ These release notes can also be consulted at http://easybuild.readthedocs.org/en
 The latest version of easybuild-easyconfig provides 7,566 easyconfig files, for 1,293 different software packages,
 25 different (compiler) toolchains, 13 software bundles and 1 meta-package.
 
+v3.4.1 (October 16th 2017)
+--------------------------
+
+bugfix/update release
+- added easyconfigs for new toolchain giolf/2017b (#5140)
+- added example easyconfig files for 11 new software packages:
+  - ASAP3 (#5200), Albacore (#5153), DLCpar (#5209), FSLeyes (#5192), IQ-TREE (#3695), NEST (#5515),
+    nanonet (#5149), oxford_asl (#5193), REMORA (#5159), SAS (#5208), supermagic (#5187)
+- added additional easyconfigs for various supported software packages, including:
+  - 3to2 1.1.1, ASAP3 3.10.7, ASAP3 3.10.7, ASE 3.15.0, ASE 3.15.0, ASE 3.15.0, ATK 2.26.0, Albacore 2.0.2, Anaconda2 4.4.0.eb, Anaconda3 4.4.0.eb, BUSCO 1.22, Beast 2.4.7, Bison 2.7, Bison 3.0.4, Bison 3.0.4, Blender 2.79, Boost 1.61.0, Boost 1.64.0, Boost 1.65.1, Boost 1.65.1, Boost 1.65.1, Boost 1.65.1, Boost 1.65.1, beagle lib, binutils 2.26, binutils 2.29, CUDA 9.0.176.eb, Cantera 2.3.0, ccache 3.3.4, cuDNN 7.0.2, DBus 1.11.20, DLCpar 1.0, DMTCP 2.5.1.eb, dbus glib, EMBOSS 6.6.0, EasyBuild 3.4.0.eb, FFTW 3.3.6, FFmpeg 3.3.4, FSLeyes 0.15.0, flex 2.6.4, flex 2.6.4, fmt 3.0.2, GCC 5.5.0, GCC system, GCCcore 5.5.0.eb, GCCcore system.eb, GConf 3.2.6, GLM 0.9.7.6, GST plugins, GStreamer 0.10.36, GTK+ 2.24.31, Gdk Pixbuf, Guile 1.8.8, gimpi 2017b.eb, giolf 2017b.eb, git 2.14.1, gompi system, grib_api 1.24.0, gzip 1.8, HDF5 1.10.1, HDF5 1.10.1, HPL 2.2, HTSlib 1.4.1, HarfBuzz 1.5.1, h5py 2.7.1, h5py 2.7.1, help2man 1.47.4, help2man 1.47.5, hwloc 1.11.8, hwloc 1.11.8, IQ TREE, Infernal 1.1.2, icc system, iccifort system, ifort system, iimpi system, impi 2017.3.196, impi system, intltool 0.51.0, Keras 2.0.8, khmer 2.1.1, LAME 3.99.5, libmatheval 1.1.11, libpng 1.2.58.eb, libxml2 2.9.5, libxslt 1.1.30, libyaml 0.1.6, lxml 4.0.0, M4 1.4.18, M4 1.4.18, Mesquite 2.3.0, Mothur 1.39.5, matplotlib 2.1.0, mpi4py 2.0.0, mympingpong 0.8.0, NEST 2.12.0, NiBabel 2.1.0, nanonet 2.0.0, ncdf4 1.16, ncview 2.1.7, netCDF 4.4.1.1, netCDF 4.4.1.1, numpy 1.13.1, OpenCV 3.3.0, OpenCV 3.3.0, OpenEXR 2.2.0, OpenFOAM Extend, OpenImageIO 1.7.17, OpenMPI 2.1.2, OpenMPI 3.0.0, OpenMPI system, oxford_asl 3.9.6, Pango 1.40.12, ParMGridGen 1.0, Perl 5.26.0, PhyML 3.3.20170530, Pillow 4.2.1, Pillow 4.3.0, PyCUDA 2016.1.2, PyYAML 3.12, Python 2.7.14, Python 2.7.14, Python 3.6.2, Python 3.6.2, protobuf python, protobuf python, protobuf python, protobuf 3.3.0, protobuf 3.4.0, REMORA 1.8.2, REMORA 1.8.2, REMORA 1.8.2, SAS 9.4.eb, SCons 2.5.1, SUNDIALS 2.7.0, ScaLAPACK 2.0.2, scikit image, scikit learn, supermagic 20170824, Tensorflow 1.2.1, Tensorflow 1.3.0, Tensorflow 1.3.0, Valgrind 3.11.0, Valgrind 3.13.0, vsc mympirun, wxPython 3.0.2.0, XML Parser, x264 20170913, x265 2.5, zlib 1.2.11, zlib 1.2.11
+- minor enhancements, including:
+  - clean up use of wcleanAll in OpenFOAM-Extend easyconfigs, now handled by OpenFOAM easyblock (#5131) 
+  - also consider rdma-core-devel as alternative to libibverbs-devel OS dependency (#5132)
+  - consistently use empty toolchain version in icc easyconfigs to ensure that GCC(core) dep is loaded during installation (#5133)
+  - consistently use empty toolchain version in ifort easyconfigs to ensure that GCC(core) dep is loaded during installation (#5134)
+  - also install run_rcorrector.pl with Rcorrector (#5135)
+  - add sha256 checksum to PyCUDA easyconfig (#5154)
+  - add missing Perl extensions in Worker/1.6.7 (#5157
+  - fix/improve description in HDF5 easyconfigs (#5182)
+  - include heatmap3 extension for R 3.4.0 (#5185)
+  - add ComplexHeatmap to Bioconductor 3.5 bundle + dep pkgs in R 3.4.0 easyconfig (#5195)
+  - fix source_urls for Szip 2.1 & include SHA256 checksum (#5206)
+  - remove unneeded --with-fft-incs configure option for ABINIT (#5207)
+- various bug fixes, including:
+  - fix building Bison 2.5 on systems with recent glibc (#5130)
+  - add patches for Boost 1.64.0 to fix known issues (#5148)
+  - remove PyCUDA easyconfig for intel/2017a, doesn't work due to incompatibility between GCC 6.3.0 & CUDA 8 (#5156)
+  - add missing libpng dependency to g2lib-1.4.0 for intel-2017a (#5196)
+
+
 v3.4.0 (September 10th 2017)
 ----------------------------