Debian User Forums

This post caused me to reminisce over on /r/Debian - my first foray into Linux was on an overclocked VESA bus 486.

Back then you compiled every kernel you installed and the kernel had to fit on a 1.44mb floppy. make oldconfig? Didn't happen back then; you built the kernel to support the hardware you had installed

Linux certainly has come a long way since then.

i have been seriously exploring gentoo, since debian decision-makers plonked systemd into stable just before go-live and the way they did it. systemd is more stable on stretch, than on jessie which we've skipped over entirely. taking choices out is imho not the way to go forward, and against the debian philosophy and social contract.

This is to bad, sad news to me, looks like I will really seriously need to start looking
at other OS's , all of my computers are i386, ------------- edited------
Oh no, this is truely embarrassing
I was confusing i386 with i686 ..................

Code: Select all

garry@debian:~$ uname -a
Linux debian 3.2.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.2.81-1 i686 GNU/Linux
 

,
But who knows, what will come next, like they decide not to support
i686 either,.. ??

I'm all for extending the life of older hardware, but at some point, pragmatic considerations do factor in.

It's worth noting that 586-class CPUs are 20+ year old technology. There comes a point when supporting really old architectures just doesn't pay back in terms of the time and effort involved. It's a little tough to fault a decision to limit support for older architectures to 686, which is still 15+ years old.

limit support for older architectures to 686, which is still 15+ years old.

I edited the previous post I made, but that does worry me, at anytime they may decide
nobody should be using a "architecture" that is 15 years old , as well, besides that
time goes by quickly, in 5 years, i686 will be 20 years old, are they going to do the same with that ?

GarryRicketson wrote:...in 5 years, i686 will be 20 years old, are they going to do the same with that ?

Eventually, sure. Worrying about exactly when that will occur is a low-payback activity.

Also, these 90's architectures that are being dropped are not going to be in Debian 9. Yet Debian 8 has LTS suport untill 2020, which measn that you will be able to use them with official support and security updates nearing 30 years after their original release.

pylkko wrote:...you will be able to use them with official support and security updates nearing 30 years after their original release.

It's interesting to see what we have come to expect. 586 support in 2016 is roughly equivalent to Z-80 support in the late '90s.