Debian Dropping Support For Older CPUs (distrowatch.com) 319
An anonymous reader shares DistroWatch's report that the Debian distribution will soon be dropping support for older, 32-bit processors.
The Debian project supports a wide range of hardware architectures, including 32-bit x86 CPUs. Changes are happening in Debian's development branches which will make older versions of the 32-bit architecture obsolete. Ben Hutchings provides the details:
"Last year it was decided to increase the minimum CPU features for the i386 architecture to 686-class in the Stretch release cycle. This means dropping support for 586-class and hybrid 586/686 processors. (Support for 486-class processors was dropped, somewhat accidentally, in Squeeze.) This was implemented in the Linux kernel packages starting with Linux 4.3, which was uploaded to Unstable in December last year. In case you missed that change, GCC for i386 has recently been changed to target 686-class processors and is generating code that will crash on other processors. Any such systems still running Testing or Unstable will need to be switched to run Stable (Jessie)." Hutching's announcement includes a list of processors which will no longer be supported after Debian "Jessie".
The Debian project supports a wide range of hardware architectures, including 32-bit x86 CPUs. Changes are happening in Debian's development branches which will make older versions of the 32-bit architecture obsolete. Ben Hutchings provides the details:
"Last year it was decided to increase the minimum CPU features for the i386 architecture to 686-class in the Stretch release cycle. This means dropping support for 586-class and hybrid 586/686 processors. (Support for 486-class processors was dropped, somewhat accidentally, in Squeeze.) This was implemented in the Linux kernel packages starting with Linux 4.3, which was uploaded to Unstable in December last year. In case you missed that change, GCC for i386 has recently been changed to target 686-class processors and is generating code that will crash on other processors. Any such systems still running Testing or Unstable will need to be switched to run Stable (Jessie)." Hutching's announcement includes a list of processors which will no longer be supported after Debian "Jessie".
20 years is probably enough (Score:2)
Possibly a mistake (Score:2, Interesting)
It should rather be downgraded to a second or third tier platform. The pentium is not going anywhere those machines will still be running in 50 years still. So long as you keep replacing the caps the machines that survived are proverbially like tanks in comparison now.
The question is what are you targeting? Only modern whizbang systems? Sounds like Apple.
Even if those old systems didn't have much they got the job done just fine. The chief problem was and always has been lazy developers that don't know anyth
64-bit (Score:3, Insightful)
I was having a conversation with another IT Manager friend of mine and he expressed that he would "have to test for 64-bit Windows" at his site now.
My jaw hit the floor. I mean, seriously? Granted, we both work in schools so the clients aren't exactly beefy, but the amount of use they get and they hadn't gone past 4Gb (or likely even TO 4Gb properly!) or onto 64-bit operating systems? And at no point had bothered to say "I wonder if these machines I'm intending to use for the next 4 years will actually support 64-bit versions of our software that I will no doubt need to rollout in the future?"
And the guy had some kind of fixation with printer drivers on 64-bit. There I was thinking "Well, if your managed print providers can't handle a '64-bit compatible' printer driver in this day and age, maybe it's time to look for a new one"
I was pushing out 64-bit Windows years ago, and the only "problems" I ever had are that basically you have to push 32-bit Office for best results, but that will change with Office 2016 rollouts no doubt.
On Linux, I don't even look but I'm fairly sure the default is 64-bit for just about anything vaguely recent (Ubuntu LTS from about, what, at least 10.04 or before has had 64-bit?). I know I've had to install the 32-bit libs on Ubuntu more than once over the last five years or so, for certain programs.
I hate to see support for old hardware dropped, as much as anyone. I tinker with old junk, especially the junk that my workplace can't make use of any more. But, come on. 64-bit? You MUST at least have checked compatibility and taken it into account when purchasing by now.
You SHOULD at least have migrated to 64-bit everywhere practical already (yes, I still have 32-bit devices, but they are thin-clients, or used for things like digital signage and thus I just don't care as they aren't critical and are easily replaced if I need to).
And if you've not done this already, this article and maybe the other comments here are the kick in the teeth that you need to do that.
Especially with 32-bit now instruction sets - how the hell have you been virtualising your stuff with only 4Gb RAM? Or are you not even there yet either? And if you ARE stuck with 32-bit on hardware / operating systems that need 64-bit, guess what technology you need to look into? Virtualisation.
Honestly guys, I have about 5% of my client stock that can't do more than 4Gb RAM because of motherboard limitations but even they support 64-bit operating systems and instructions as a matter of course.
For a desktop-focus operating systems, 64-bit should have been the default for, what? Nearly a decade? I'm not sure, it's so long ago that I needed to worry about it.
What's different between 686 and 586? (Score:2)
I've looked at the wikipedia page for both the Pentium (586) [wikipedia.org] and Pentium pro (686) [wikipedia.org], and I see that the pro made significant changes under the hood, but I don't see differences in terms of the instruction set (although I may not be reading the article close enough). If the instruction set for the 586 and 686 is identical, then why drop 586 but not 686? I realize that the 586 is slower, but that alone doesn't seem like a good reason to drop support. What am I missing?
A minor concern, but still a concern ... (Score:3)
The processors being dropped are admittedly ancient and are unlikely to see much use. If any other distribution was dropping it, I would not be concerned in the slightest. The reason why I have an inkling of concern is because Debian is the base for many other Linux distributions, and Debian is designed in a way that is easy to adapt for many low end systems.
I'm not going to lose any sleep over this decision. If I ever had the need to use hardware with such an old processor, chances are that it would require older software on top of an older distribution on top of an older kernel anyhow. (And chances are the need to use such an old processor would be to drive hardware that requires Windows or DOS rather than Linux.) Still, it is worth discussion.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Arch limited themselves to 686 or newer some time ago.
Re:So.. Slackware? (Score:4, Interesting)
Likewise, if you're using hardware from 1995 (what they're talking about here) you're just going to have to use old software to fit it. There's nothing really to see here. No software supports hardware much beyond 10 years.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I mean they are talking the K6 and the winchip.
I'd be shocked to see a K6 era machine in a dumpster (and disgusted it took this long to chuck it).
You'd be better off replacing it with an ARM chip that would give you much higher IPC at a much much lower draw than any of these old things.
Word. You may not be able to run Windows 95 on it (although I think there's something that's trying to do that, reactOS, or something like that), but there's probably some Win95 emulator that would run someone's nostalgia software.
I'm still pretty peeved at myself at buying an old Solaris server from circa 1998 in 2006, which I chucked in 2012. Big, noisy, & slow with 2GB of RAM. I still have a soft spo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Other than the guys doing things like CAD, you know office work... sure.
AutoCAD ran just fine on 32-bit computers with "older CPUs" for many years.
Um, a Pentium MMX? With 64 MB of RAM? The oldest version I can find official info on is AutoCAD 2004, which recommends (at minimum, mind you) 4x the RAM and a Pentium 4. Did you use the same version of AutoCAD for 20+ years, or what? They aren't obsoleting 32 bit processors, they're obsoleting a very small group of processors that can't even handle Windows XP.
Re:So.. Slackware? (Score:5, Insightful)
But you're not using a 30 year old system in production are you?
I'd wager the only place you'll find a 30 year old system is in production.
Re: (Score:2)
I wanna hear from you, Slack users! Is it a viable alternative on older desktops?
Older like, how old? They're dropping Pentium classic support and moving to PPro only. I think the absolute fastest desktop CPU was IIRC the Pentium MMX 233MHz, which wa first sold in some time around 1997.
There have of course been faster variants produced by others like the Vortex86 CPU for embedded stuff, which I think wound up somewhere near 800MHz. Though they were never desktop CPUs, and anyway, if you're doing embedded de
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
really? Are there many embedded system processor that run intel's instruction set i586 and older ?
Re:Sad to see Debian... (Score:4, Informative)
Intel was still selling embedded 386 and 486 processors until 2007. POS terminals don't require jack shit for power. They're all over the place.
Re:Sad to see Debian... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sad to see Debian... (Score:5, Insightful)
And then deal with the fact that the versions are EOL and you're running without patches.
Re:Sad to see Debian... (Score:4, Funny)
If your POS terminals are directly connected to the internet, you have bigger problems then lack of patches.
If you're assuming that a POS terminal can't be involved in an attack just because it's not directly connected to the internet, then you have bigger problems than hosts directly connected to the internet, and they are between the keyboard and chair.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're running Debian on an embedded system then you're doing it wrong anyway. Debian has never been tuned for embedded, and a properly tuned embedded system is more likely to be compiled from source or INCREDIBLY minimal packaging. In addition I can't imagine running systemd on embedded systems as it's a bit heavy for systems with slow CPUs and small memory spaces.
Hell, a basic Redhat / CENTOS install is better tuned for embedded than Debian, and that's not saying much.
Re: (Score:3)
Intel currently has the P5-compatible Quark/Curie platform, jumping on the arduino train.
In any case, Debian would be too heavy given the lack of RAM.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean jumping off the arduino train. They just killed that whole line about two weeks ago, in a strategic product lines reorg.
Re: (Score:2)
They did?
I thought they were just dropping their smartphone Atom SoCs.
The Quark is a completely different chip.
Re: (Score:2)
Intel currently has the P5-compatible Quark/Curie platform, jumping on the arduino train.
In any case, Debian would be too heavy given the lack of RAM.
They have an astonishingly huge 1G of RAM. This here laptop has that much RAM.
Honestly, though I don't get the platform and I don't think intel really "get" the low end. I've bumped into some wearable stuff recently and we were talking to Intel, as they are trying to get people to port stuff over to their platform (Curie).
It turns out that the nRF51 series blu
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The AMD Geode systems are still on sale in some cheap boards (PC-Engines and Soekris), and they were on the list of processors Debian dropped support for last time.
But is anyone actually still buying those? Or do they just have some back stock they can't get rid of? Their geode boards have basically no RAM, so these days you can get an ARM board that will crap all over them for a lot less.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What "embedded" systems are still being made with old school pentiums?!
Re: (Score:2)
What "embedded" systems are still being made with old school pentiums?!
People are still making embedded boards with 486s, let alone 586s. They are small and they are cheap. They tend to have PC104 bus and they tend to be used to replace legacy PC104-based industrial control machines which depend on specific hardware and software to get the job done. In theory you could replace the hardware part with a PCI card [connecttech.com] but if the software is very bad, and it often is, then the timing of the original hardware may be relevant to its function, and you may actually need to replace like wit
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you build both, both need to be tested. I'm not privy to Debian release standards, but I expect it's become harder to find community members willing to do the necessary testing on what are essentially obsolete platforms.
Additionally, eliminating platforms reduces complexity of defining packaging, and all manner of procedural things required for the release of a distro. It's not simply a matter of running GCC with a switch.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not privy to Debian release standards
They basically boil down to if the package builds and noone reports that it's broken (either because it's not broken on because noone actually tried it) then it gets shipped. Some packages have build time test suites but of course that only tests that the package works on the CPU the autobuilder happens to have, not on the minimum CPU for the port. Maintainers usually do some testing before uploading but generally only on one architecture unless they are working on an architecture specific bug.
Re:a bit early (Score:5, Informative)
They are not dropping 32 bit support, only pre-pentium pro support, ie. 486 and Pentium.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They're dropping a (mini-)generation past 486 & Pentium. They're referred to as 586 class chips. AMD K6-2s, Pentium 2s. Many 32bit CPUs are probably safe, like Pentium4 or AMD Athlon. Not sure if the early Celerons will have support.
Re: (Score:2)
>That would make the AMD Athlon (aka K7) from 1999 the oldest still supported AMD chip.
Geez that takes me back, I had it's little-brother the Duron in my main machine for quite a while around that time, later one it would become my first dedicated media player machine (hooked up to the TV to watch movies on) - which I was still using until it finally gave out about 7 or 8 years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
And we require CMOV because, while it is complete crap in the early i686, it is really important for performance on the Pentium M and later... which are important because of the ThinkPads :-)
This is more than a bit wacky, though. The K6/2 is actually faster than a P2 at the same clock rate in some benches, assuming you've compiled for K6 and not just for 686. And the K6/3 is definitively faster. So P2s are still supported, but the faster K6/3 is not?
In practice, the numbers of people who will care are minuscule, but it's still wacky, even if it's gcc's fault.
Re:a bit early (Score:5, Informative)
Probably not zero impact; but those are some ancient devices; and Debian Stable will still support them until either 2018 or 2020 depending on whether they make it into LTS or not.
Re: (Score:3)
They aren't dropping 32-bit x86
This isn't quite on topic, but Google Chrome has already said they won't provide updates for 32 bit, which seems pretty ridiculous. And Gmail gives a warning.
I have a perfectly good 7 year old (32 bit only) Acer netbook, great for running Emacs and doing all sorts of work that doesn't involve too much in the way of graphics. I'm sure many others have similar devices.
Re: (Score:2)
On the Wintel side, a lot of the cheapie Atom-based systems, even pretty new ones with 64-bit CPUs, shipped with 32-bit UEFI until quite recently(some still might, if so the OE
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The Pentium Pro, which they're supposedly keeping, is a 20 year old 32bit architecture. Not long enough?
Re: (Score:2)
In practice, support for older CPU's died out a while ago. Not because of incompatibilities but simply due to the OS becoming too heavy to run in any reasonable capacity on those CPU's.
Re: (Score:2)
i can see dropping 386/486 as they where 30 years old but there still is tons and tons of 32 bit devices in the wiled.
Yeah, like devices with Pentium {Pro,II,III,4}. Those aren't being dropped.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Finally (Score:5, Informative)
xp supports 32 bit so does 7 8 and 10.
So does debian.
its way to early to be killing off 32 bit support
They're not.
as low end machines where all 32 bit until just a few years ago so many are still in use.netbooks embedded etc.
I guess it's a good thing debian isn't killing off 32 bit support isn't it?
Did you try reading the summary? It says right there, minimum 686 class. Not that they're killing 32 bit support.
Summary is incorrect-ish (Score:5, Informative)
as low end machines where all 32 bit until just a few years ago so many are still in use.netbooks embedded etc.
I guess it's a good thing debian isn't killing off 32 bit support isn't it?
Did you try reading the summary? It says right there, minimum 686 class. Not that they're killing 32 bit support.
He did read the summary. The summary states that Debian will be dropping support for "older, 32-bit processors." There should not have been a comma. The comma makes "older" and "32-bit" coordinate adjectives rather than having "older" modify "32-bit." It is written as if the 32-bit processors are the older processors. And while technically both adjectives apply and it is ambiguous, the implication of a normal reading would be that 32-bit processor support was being discontinued.
Unless you read the whole summary and happened to know which of the processor families have a 32-bit architecture. But many people aren't going to bother when the first sentence says they're discontinuing support for "older, 32-bit processors."
So his mistake is perfectly understandable.
Re: (Score:2)
So his mistake is perfectly understandable.
Why stop there? Why not just read the first word and call yourself an expert?
If someone can't be arsed reading a summary that is approximately 7 sentences long they simply shouldn't comment on the subj.... oh look at the kitty. Kids these days have such short attent... man I need a coffee, is it home time yet?
Re:Finally (Score:5, Informative)
"Last year it was decided to increase the minimum CPU features for the i386 architecture to 686-class in the Stretch release cycle. This means dropping support for 586-class and hybrid 586/686 processors.
No they're dropping support for older cpus as the headline says. Those 30 year old cpu designs won't be supported in debian. No where in the headline does it imply debian 9 will be 64-bit only.
Re: (Score:2)
i686 a.k.a. Pentium II is only 19 years old
If someone can manage to run current debian distributions on a pentium II then that would be news worthy. If you can't even do that it's not worth talking pre-pentium II.
Re: Finally (Score:4, Informative)
ahem, pentium pro, late 1995.
The main difference was that the Pentium II added MMX.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not what I'm saying.
Yes, Pentium MMX was definitely a thing.
But the Pentium Pro (P6) came out earlier and didn't have those MMX instructions. So the Pentium II was its successor (P6) with MMX support.
timeline:
Pentium (P5) -> Pentium Pro (P6) -> Pentium MMX (P5) -> Pentium II (P6, with MMX)
Re: (Score:3)
They're also dropping support for VIA C3 Ezra cores. The newest of these was released in June 2002 and is therefore only almost 14 years old. This is the only one on the list that seems a bit of a shame. These are low-power cores and run at up to about 1GHz, so they're still likely to be in use for devices where performance is not a serious issue.
It looks as if they've already dropped support for some of the older AMD Geode CPUs, which are still on sale in low-end router boards.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The AMD Elan / Geode does have CMOV support. I've got Gentoo running on one with a hacked kernel that id's and treats it as a 686 class CPU instead of 486 and so far no issues. I should collect my changes and see if I can get them mainlined...
Re: (Score:2)
The first i686 processor was the Pentium Pro and was introduced November 1st, 1995.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
jesus christ.. in every single one of your posts on this topic, you have fucked up some version of they're, their, and there.
In fact, you haven't used the proper spelling for the word you have used A SINGLE TIME.
Re: (Score:3)
That's probably a fair indicator as to the underlying reason for their failing to understand the summary and to accuse it of being clickbait.
Re: (Score:3)
it said dropping 32 bit and i686 there not dropping i686.
Pay attention! Processors, processors, processors!, not 32 bit
FTFA:
[1] The following processors, supported in jessie, are now unspported:
* AMD K5, K6, K6-2 (aka K6 3D), K6-3
* DM&P/SiS Vortex86, Vortex86SX
* Cyrix III, MediaGX, MediaGXm
* IDT Winchip C6, Winchip 2
* Intel Pentium, Pentium with MMX
* Rise mP6
* VIA C3 'Samuel 2', C3 'Ezra'
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Debian Dropping Support For Older CPUs
It doesn't say anything about 32 bit or i686 in the headline. Just says older cpus.
And in the first line of the story it says "An anonymous reader shares DistroWatch's report that the Debian distribution will soon be dropping support for older, 32-bit processors." Perhaps the comma after "older" should have been left out, so that it was clear that it meant "those 32-bit processors that are older", as in "pre-P6", rather than "those older processors - you know, the 32-bit ones".
Re: (Score:2)
And in the first line of the story it says "An anonymous reader shares DistroWatch's report that the Debian distribution will soon be dropping support for older, 32-bit processors."
Which isn't what the distrowatch headline says at all, and further in the summary it clarifies that with:
Last year it was decided to increase the minimum CPU features for the i386 architecture to 686-class in the Stretch release cycle
as in 686 is the minimum.
Re: (Score:2)
Last year it was decided to increase the minimum CPU features for the i386 architecture to 686-class in the Stretch release cycle
as in 686 is the minimum.
The bit you quoted is confusing because it is wrong, however, because Debian is wrong when they call it an i386 architecture.
Re: (Score:2)
A comma is not going to fix problems caused by people reading a single line and declaring a state of emergency. There's no way the summary could have been misunderstood by someone who actually read the full thing and had a functioning brain.
Re: Finally (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
and no one is talking about killing 32-bit support. Debian is just killing i586 and older support. So your pentium with MMX will no longer run debian. Not sure anyone was willing to run a 4.x linux kernel on that anyway.
I was running one within the past two months. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not even an MMX, a Pentium 90 from 95ish.
It still runs fine, has 64 megs of RAM, a nice GPU which can handle screens up to 2048x1576 (I think that is the max VGA standard.), has been running 1600x1200 desktop. Mind you a modern linux distro with systemd is worthless on it, so debian is already automatically out. But a gentoo install, any of the 'small linux' projects, or a hand built distro can make it competitive for non-processor intensive commandline work, or svelte single process GUI apps.
I am a little less peeved at debian dropping support for it than GNU dropping the ball with GCC support. There isn't really an alternative to gnu on linux (outside 686+ x86, x86_64, and arm) and thanks to all the douchey changes in C11/C++11 it's basically required to have a modern compiler even for many apps/libraries that predated it. (Good clean code can still compile across all three, but the 'feature crowd' keep breaking shit just to try out new features and force people on the compiler treadmill.)
Re:I was running one within the past two months. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maintaining useless old CPU architectures costs time and money. Given you can buy a Pentium 4 class CPU for $3 (or a quad core 2.8GHz i7 for $50), and a good developer's time is easily worth $100 per hour, it just plain doesn't make sense to support 20+ year old Intel chips.
If you believe differently, well - GCC is an open source project. How much are you paying to use it? Support it yourself, or spend $100 and get a new i686 capable computer.
Re: (Score:3)
I am a little less peeved at debian dropping support for it than GNU dropping the ball with GCC support.
What are youtalking about?
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs... [gnu.org]
GCC still supports the original 386.
There isn't really an alternative to gnu on linux (outside 686+ x86, x86_64, and arm) and thanks to all the douchey changes in C11/C++11
What are you talking about "douchey changes". Many of us acknowledge that technology advances and don't like being stuck with languages which were the state of the art in the l
Re: (Score:2)
Happily running Gentoo on Soekris 4501s and 4801s still...
Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
The processors they are dropping support for, according to the mailing list, are approximately from the Windows 95 era of computing.... AMD K6 ( a tad newer ) and Intel Pentium / Pentium W/ MMX. That's Win9.x era hardware that even if you could get XP to boot on, it wouldn't be a fun experience.
Frankly I don't know how anyone is still running a usable system on that ancient of hardware without custom tuning the hell out of their kernel and applications anyway, as those systems had extremely small amounts of RAM.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You might be surprised how snappy a P-Pro 200 feels on the desktop with a lightweight setup such as xfce. But thats definitely a situation where its better to recompile. Recent mainstream distros and their derivatives are absolute pigs with little if any regard for efficiency. Modern distros remind me of firing up a full-blown JVM for a simple text editor
Re: (Score:3)
"Modern distros remind me of firing up a full-blown JVM for a simple text editor"
Come on man. This is slashdot. A car analogy is mandatory here. e.g. Using a Ferrari to take your trash to the landfill.
(BTW, I just upgraded my eight year old Linux system to a more modern system in order to run a "modern" web browser. Aren't all these new features great? Actually, No. Mostly they are at best different ways to do something that worked fine the old way. At worst, they are outright annoying. On top of wh
Re: (Score:3)
Pentium Pro is 20 years old, and used an insane amount of electricity to do what it does in comparison to what could be had for less than $125 now. Even an Atom-based SBC from today can do what that Pentium Pro 200 could 7 or 8 times faster, and do it using like 20W of power, maximum.
The electricity savings alone would pay for deleting that ancient hardware and replacing it, much less that fantastic increase in processing power for what is literally Intel's current lowest end x86 CPU.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a couple of custom built routers using Cyrix 586 clones that this will likely affect. Mind you, these are probably reaching EOL anyways, but if I want to keep them going into the future, I'm sure I can throw another distro on there. Crappy little processors, but fine for iptables, QOS and traffic/intrusion monitoring.
Re: (Score:2)
Why does it have to affect them? Are you installing the latest Debian on them? And if so, WHY? Older versions are perfectly usable (and possibly preferable) for a basic router.
Re: (Score:3)
You're paying more in electricity than it would cost to replace those machines.,
I'm always fascinated when people make these claims because in my experience every "upgrade" uses more power.
My current setup: Two motherboards (I think both VIA but I might be wrong on one of them), ADSL bridge, wireless access point, couple of hard drives plus ancient 1Gb SSD disks which plug into a PATA connector, small switch. The whole lot draws 60W from the mains supply and will run off a single 12V 60W power supply althou
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting. Thanks. I will take a look at that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The C3 Ezra (on their list) was introduced in June 2002 (and ran at 1GHz). Definitely not a Windows 95 era machine. It ended up in quite a lot of low-power Mini-ITX systems where, for reasons of form factor and cooling, upgrading the CPU is typically not an option.
Re: (Score:2)
>people are trying to repurpose old hardware and go "look it still works" rather than "I can do something fun with this"
Those are not mutually exclusive things. Some people think that getting ancient hardware into a workable state is a fun thing to do. A friend of mine managed to pick up an original apple II at a pawnshop, he spent weeks on the extremely arduous task of making workable boot disks for that thing on a modern system - and now it sits on his kitchen counter doing nothing but running a clock
Re: (Score:2)
Where's your pre-Pentium II machines that need support?
Re: (Score:2)
Most touchscreen POS systems from ELO and other similar companies.
They're on 386/486 hardware. Go look at your Taco Bell or Del Taco or non-McCafe McDonalds systems.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I open up a terminal, and type in ps aux. A huge gigantic list comes up
......
I miss the good old days...
You can still run one of the minimalist distros, and I'm guessing you'll like it.
All I really care about at a fundamental working level is Emacs (I'm a writer and text mode suits me for many things). My seven year old Acer netbook works fine for these simple needs, and not running a graphical environment gives me longer battery life.
In a way, it's like the good old days. In those days you could get a lot done with a text interface. That hasn't changed. You still can do a lot.
Re:Shame (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You should not need [...] just to [...] browse the internet.
The HTML4 spec alone is probably too computationally intensive for P2/K6 chips to handle it. (HTML5? Ha ha...) Just try using dillo on today's webpages.
In fact, unless you are doing photo-editing work, or something similar, you do not need a graphical desktop at all.
And you don't need to buy butter in a supermarket, just churn your own butter... (I'm not on your lawn, old man...!)
I miss the good old days...
You're missing a whole retro revolution with all the hobbyist ARM/FPGA kits coming out now.
Re: (Score:2)
HTML parsing isn't such an issue as the Javascript-heavy sites that advertisers track you with.
I haven't tried Noscript on a 486, mind you!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
75 millibits, huh? You sure about that? That's less than 1/10 of one bit.
Re:Intel Pentium with MMX from 1993 (Score:5, Insightful)
"It's difficult to imagine that that processor still has the grunt to run an OS these days."
What, did you forget that pretty much everything you're doing RIGHT NOW is exactly the same stuff you were doing back on Windows 95/98? Playing games, surfing the web, watching videos (not streamed, usually from VCD or DVD) and maybe getting some work done.
Nothing has changed. People just got shitty at programming.
MenuetOS shows this off quite well. It does everything. Even runs Quake. Full GUI, supports all kinds of shit.
1.4 Megabytes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Except now we're using h264 and h265 which provide far greater quality than vcd or dvd, and the tv card is 1080p on modern computers, your display resolution on modern computers is higher. All of these things drastically increase how much ram and cpu your system needs. Web browsing also now includes things like tabs, spellchecking, h264 video built in, built in audio, 3d rendering. All things that the old 95/98 boxes didn't do on a stock install.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I know. I was watching 1080p YouTube in a browser with 40 tabs open displaying dynamic content while simultaneously doing a backup and a virus scan all while waiting for fallout 4 to finally load the next area in a windows game on my second monitor in the 90s.
Except I wasn't. If you think the things we do now are even remotely comparable to back then, even basic things like word processing then you need your head checked.
Now boot up windows 95, fire up IE4 and post a reply to me from that machine. I da
Re: (Score:3)
NetBSD (Score:3)
When ram is less than 4gb, i use i686. Of course you could also ask: Is there anyone with less than 4gb of ram? And the answer is: yes, and they should stick to i686 simply because 32bit apps consume less ram.
To avoid throwing away old gear, even if linux drops support for the older 32bit cpus, you could always use something like Netbsd, which still officially supports i486. I particularly use OpenBSD with very old machines, simply because you can (net)install it using a single floppy.
A typical Pentium mig