14 DAY TRIAL // Linux kernel 3.19 RC7 was announced by Linus Torvalds and it's probably the last release in this development cycle before the branch becomes stable, most likely next week.
The 3.19 branch of the Linux kernel had a pretty quiet development cycle and that means things are actually on the right track. Nothing out of the ordinary happened and everything worked like a well-oiled machined. Not even the holidays slowed down the development process and it had little bearing on the released date, which is scheduled for next week.
It's not a done deal and things could still go wrong, but the chances of that happening are pretty slim. Eight release candidates is actually a shorter cycle than what we're used to. We usually have more and at least one interesting thing happens in all that time, but sometimes everything falls into place.
Linux kernel 3.19 RC7 is the last step
It's hard to determine whether the 3.19 will have any real future, but if we take a close look at the other versions that are still being maintained, you will probably notice that all of them have even version numbers. As it stands right now, only Ubuntu 15.04 is scheduled to get this new kernel, but other distros might join.
"Everything seems to be fairly calm and normal, so this is likely to be the last rc unless something unexpected suddenly comes up. Which means that I'd like to see more people test-booting and running this puppy just to check things out. Fairly normal rc statistics - about 50% drivers, 20% Arch updates (mostly arm and arm64, some x86), with filesystems showing up a bit more than usual (largely due to some quota changes), and the rest being "misc" - perf tooling, some minor kernel and vm changes etc," wrote Linus Torvalds on the mailing list.
You can download Linux kernel 3.19 RC7 right now from Softpedia and give it a try. You will have to compile it for yourself and it's advisable to use a testing machine, not your regular one. Even if it's close to release, it doesn't mean that it's stable.