benchmarking a tailored 5.2.16 here. Looking good sofar.

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Here we go, again.

Another round of updates has been scheduled for release Saturday night, GMT.

If no problems are found while testing the release candidates, they might be available late Friday or early Saturday (depending on your time zone).

The 5.3.1 kernel update will incorporate 21 patches.
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/k...9.2/04467.html

The 5.2.17 kernel update will accommodate 124 patches.
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/k...9.2/04055.html

The 4.19.75 update will have 79 patches.
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/k...9.2/04166.html

The 4.14.146 update will have 59 patches.
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/k...9.2/04217.html

The 4.9.194 update will contain 74 patches.
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/k...9.2/04256.html

The 4.4.194 kernel update will include 56 patches.
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/k...9.2/04305.html

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That should have been 4.9.194, you now mention 4.14 twice.

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Corrected.
Thanks for catching that.

An update for the 3.16.y kernel series has been scheduled for release Monday evening, GMT.

The 3.16.74 update will have 132 patches.

Mr. Hutchings' announcement,
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/k...9.2/05003.html

Kernel updates 5.3.1, 5.2.17, 4.19.75, 4.14.146, 4.9.194 and 4.4.194 are now available at
https://www.kernel.org/

The change logs,

https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...hangeLog-5.3.1

https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...angeLog-5.2.17

https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...ngeLog-4.19.75

https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...geLog-4.14.146

https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...ngeLog-4.9.194

https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...ngeLog-4.4.194

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4.4.194 and 4.19.75 both address CVE-2019-14814,CVE-2019-14815,CVE-2019-14816 (mwifiex: Fix three heap overflow at parsing element in cfg80211_ap_settings) and CVE-2019-14821 (KVM: coalesced_mmio: add bounds checking). I will have to package 4.19.75 for Slint, I think, even if I don't know how many users if any we have of those Marvell wifi devices.

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Kernel update 3.16.74 is now available at, https://www.kernel.org/

The change log, https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/ker...ngeLog-3.16.74

Mr. Hutchings' announcement, http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/k...9.3/00195.html

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I might be acting uncharacteristically lazy but in this case my interest just isn't sufficient to do the work when it is likely someone here is into this. I'm mildly curious as to what the benefits are of continued development on v3 and even v4 kernels? So if anyone just already knows it'd be sweet to see this minor bit of casual curiosity resolved. Thanks in advance.

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For instance: the latest Slackware release (14.2) uses the 4.4 kernel, which is still being maintained. So there probably are distro's around that make use of 3.x kernels too.
I know of RHEL/CentOS 7, that uses 3.10, but that kernel is being maintained (backported security patches etc) by the RedHat crew, not by the kernel developers.
BTW: the same goes for the new RHEL 8 release: it is using 4.18 which is EOL on the kernel site too. That is one of the advantages of a commercial Linux: they DO have the manpower to do such things.

And there are no major functional changes between i.e. 4.19 and 5.x kernels. OK: they do have some newer features and support more modern hardware, but are more instable too (and are maintained for a much shorter period).

PS: although Slackware 14.0 and 14.1 are still being maintained they DO use kernels that are now EOL: 14.0 uses 3.2 and 14.1 is on 3.10 so these releases are not usable anymore for the newest hardware. Pat doesn't have the manpower to maintain these kernels himself.

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I think the community version of the Smoothwall firewall appliance (Express 3.1) is still using a v3 kernel.

Lumpy

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As others have stated, it's tied to software projects/distros that aren't willing/able to upgrade to newer kernel versions. While it is relatively straightforward for regular x86/x86_64 users to upgrade to a newer kernel, many other arches, like arm, are much more difficult, as the drivers/blobs aren't open source and designed to work with a specific kernel. This is the case with many Android devices and other standalone machines.

Then there's always the slight possibility of instability introduced by a newer kernel, which is why many distros who strive for stability over the "latest and greatest" tend to stay on the same kernel release for patches on a stable release.

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Maybe this is old news ?
According to kernel.org "releases" the next long term release will be 5.4
with projected EOL dec 2021...

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Is it just me or the term LTS is somewhat losing its meaning when ever newer releases are failing ever shorter in their respectful lifetime expectancy?

I, for one, never did expect any subsequent LTS release to EOL earlier than a previous.

That alone is a strong message for me coming from such an authority the kernel foundation is, or should be at least.

Am I just getting old?

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It was discussed a few pages back. It certainly raises some questions about what Pat will do for the 15.0 kernel. Two years is not long enough, and it's extremely doubtful that the Slackware team would maintain it themselves. Unless they focus more on -current.