14 DAY TRIAL // The next long-term supported Linux kernel series was revealed recently as Linux 4.19 by the long-time Linux kernel developer and maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman.
Now that Linux kernel 4.17 has reached end of life and the recently released Linux 4.18 kernel doesn't look to have what it needs to become an LTS (Long Term Support) branch, the LTSI (Long-Term Support Initiative) community reached out to Greg Kroah-Hartman to know what the next LTS Linux kernel series will be.
And the answer is yes, the upcoming Linux 4.19 kernel will be an LTS (Long Term Support) series, supported for at least a couple of years after its initial release. At the moment, there are five long-term support Linux kernel branches, namely Linux 4.14, Linux 4.9, Linux 4.4, as well as Linux 3.16 and Linux 3.18.
Linux kernel 4.19 launches in mid-October 2018
The Linux 4.19 kernel series recently entered development as Linus Torvalds himself kicked off the development at the end of last month with the first Release Candidate (RC), after a two-week merge window that closed on August 26. A second Release Candidate was released over the weekend as well.
The development cycle will continue with weekly Release Candidate versions until the final release, which is expected to hit the streets sometime in mid-October 2018 as the end of year release and the next LTS (Long Term Support) kernel series. Linux kernel 4.19 could launch on October 14 or October 21, 2018.
Linux kernel 4.19's highlights include a new USB Type-C display mode alternate driver, numerous x86 KVM improvements, support for Intel's Low Power Subsystem (LPSS) devices, more 64-bit ARM improvements, many DRM improvements, Qualcomm Adreno 600 support, as well as additional Spectre mitigations for IBM POWER CPUs.
We have asked to GregKH. Does 4.19 will be next LTS? Answer was YES. LTS version will be end of year release. So it will be 4.19. We expected 4.20 in June but some delay happened actually. — LinuxLTSI (@LinuxLTSI) August 29, 2018