You know they mean it when the blog entry starts with a TLDR from Linux Mint founder Clem Lefebvre.
• Security updates are very important
• Stats tell us they’re not being applied by all users
• Apply updates right now!
• Don’t run an EOL version of Linux Mint
While Mint doesn’t use trackers to phone home to the mother ship, developers have reason to believe that Linux Mint 17 is in usr by between 5 and 30 percent.
That’s a pretty wide range. But considering Linux Mint 17’s last version was .3 (Rosa) in January 2016, and that support ended April 2019, Lefebvre writes, “0% of users should run Linux Mint 17.x! Anything above is not good, whether it’s 5% or 30%.”
That’s proof enough for us. Linux Mint users can Clem’s full blog post here, then run Update Manager. Your machines (and Lefebvre) will thank you.