I have a display issue with my thinkpad on the newer releases of the linux kernel (BUG # 1888703). How long does it take for someone to be assigned?

Do you have the latest BIOS?
Are you sure the connection to the screen isn't faulty?
If you boot to a Windows install CD is it the same there?

See in line answers below:

Do you have the latest BIOS? > Yes, it's the latest for this machine
Are you sure the connection to the screen isn't faulty? > No issues with the screen occur when booting using older kernels (such as 5.3.0-62 generic. The issue started with 5.4.0-42 and continued on with 5.4.0-45. Black stripes are intermittent and change only when the when the mouse is hoovered over a window the screen is updated. Also I mirror the screen from the laptop to an external display, both act the same.
If you boot to a Windows install CD is it the same there? > I can boot into windows with this machine with no screen problems.

Which graphics chip dies the system have?
Have you tried a different graphics driver (if one is available)?

And a short remark on the (missing) responses of the developers to your bug report:
It seems that nobody else has experienced this problem so far ("This bug affects 1 person.")
There are other issues affecting lots of users. They of course get higher priority.

Thanks for the feedback on the process and prioritization.

The device is a ThinkPad T40 Type 2373 and according to CNET ( https://www.cnet.com/products/ibm-thinkpad-t40-2373-14-1-pentium-m-win-xp-pro-512-mb-ram-30-gb-hdd-series/ ) the graphics processor is a ATI Mobility Radeon 7500. I'm not sure if a different driver is available for this chipset or how to even find out (but I'll check into it).

Sorry, mistake in previous post. It is a ThinkPad T42 type 2373 with 2GB of memory (not 1GB as mentioned in the link in the following link: https://www.cnet.com/products/ibm-thinkpad-t42p-2373-15-pentium-m-745-win-xp-pro-1-gb-ram-60-gb-hdd-series/ ). The graphics processor is a AGP 4x - ATI Mobility FireGL T2. I'm not sure if a different driver is available for this chipset or how to even find out (but I'll check into it).

The driver installed is:
$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV350/M10 GL [Mobility FireGL T2] [1002:4e54] (rev 80)

What is the output of the command

sudo lshw -C display

sudo lshw -C display
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: RV350/M10 GL [Mobility FireGL T2]
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: 80
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: agp agp-2.0 pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=radeon latency=66 mingnt=8
       resources: irq:11 memory:e0000000-e7ffffff ioport:3000(size=256) memory:c0100000-c010ffff memory:c0000-dffff

As far as I know, this is the correct driver.

Thanks, this was done using a working kernel 5.3.0.62. I have purged the other kernel updates since then (5.4.0.42 and later) since they are unusable with the display this way. Should I reinstall a new kernel and see if the problem goes away or if another driver is substituted? I assume I would do this using apt-get update and apt-get upgrade. Is there a command to limit the kernel to be installed or will it default to the latest kernel?

Ok, managed to fix the problem (in a way) by 1) holding the 5.3.0.62 kernel so I have it as an option by not being removed and 2) reinstalling 5.4.0.45 using: sudo apt install linux-image-5.4.0-45-generic

Video now works in 5.4.0.45 but video options are diminished (i.e. top resolution is 1024 x 768) and audio is gone. All I get is a "Dummy Output" under sound card options with no other options.

Googling for users with similar issues I found the following:

lspci -nnk | grep -A 1 Audio
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller [8086:24c5] (rev 01)
 Subsystem: IBM 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller [1014:0554]
00:1f.6 Modem [0703]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller [8086:24c6] (rev 01)

Also:

inxi -SA
System: Host: mauro-ThinkPad-T42p Kernel: 5.4.0-45-generic i686 bits: 32
           Desktop: MATE 1.20.1 Distro: Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS

Leads me to believe that that are no kernel drivers associated with the system. I tried forcing it by using a workaround of adding "options snd-hda-intel dmic_detect=0" in the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf as described in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1869799 but no luck. When I revert to kernel 5.3.0.62 everything works well.

Together with linux-image-5.4.0-45-generic you need also linux-modules-5.4.0-45-generic and linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-45-generic.

(Remark: the current version is linux-*--5.4.0-47-generic)

BTW - thanks so much for you help. I updated to 5.4.0.47 using
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install linux-image-5.4.0-47-generic
sudo apt-get install linux-modules-5.4.0-47-generic
sudo apt-get install linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-47-generic

Sound is back and also higher resolution options on the video but so is the screen tearing

Is there a way to revert to generic a video driver?

OK, to close this out. I manually purged 5.4.0-47, headers and modules and manually loaded up newer 5.4.0-48, headers and modules and everything is fine now. So I'm thinking something was broken on the previous kernels and is now working.

However, I've noticed that "Software Updater" now doesn't alert me to the existence of a new kernel (which is why I was manually updating). Is there a command or process to turn that feature back on?

Do you remember which packages were removed when you purged the 5.4.0-47 version of the kernel?

I assume that linux-generic-hwe-18.04, linux-image-generic-hwe-18.04 and linux-headers-generic-hwe-18.04 were among them

Try
sudo apt install linux-generic-hwe-18.04

If now everything is working again, then yo should also make a comment in your bug report.