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> Linux also can't abandon hardware support for some of these weird environments, either. But why not? Are we obligated to support everything forever? If it’s

> Linux also can't abandon hardware support for some of these weird environments, either. But why not? Are we obligated to support everything forever? If it’s hardly being used, and is starting to get in the way of safety and correctness improvements, why can’t we drop something old, arcane and unused?

ilammy 5y ago
> old, arcane and unused? But it is used by retrocomputing enthusiasts. Linux has been supported by them for the platforms they care. They gladly hold up the bar “now you have to support Linux yourself”, with C compilers already existing and being supported by someone else. With Rust becoming a build-time dependency, things suddenly turn into “you're not getting any Linux until you port rustc to your platform and then make sure it's working there at all times”.
- Mic92 5y ago
  So everyone is not getting a more secure/safe system because a small minority wants to run Linux on old computers? That does not sound fair to me. Why can't they not use old versions of Linux as well.
kmeisthax 5y ago
Counterpoint: not all of this is actually going unused. Yes, Debian popcon is going to show the vast majority of users on x86 and ARM; but that is primarily consumer use cases. When you get into embedded, you will start to see all sorts of weird arcane setups that actual businesses rely upon. Case in point: this commercial kitchen appliance that is actually a DOS PC built with modern parts. [0] Not to mention the startlingly high number of large businesses running off of IBM server hardware. Much of that is actually legacy stuff that's been rebranded and massively upgraded over the years. A company that bought into System/360 in the 80s or AS/400 in the early 90s will almost certainly have backwards-compatible zSeries or System i hardware running literally 30-40 year old programs. Point is, there's lots of business critical crap running on things other than x86 or ARM. I only used retrocomputing as an example because I had a good anecdote for it. Businesses treat computers as if retrocomputing was also somehow mission critical and they pay handsomely for the privilege. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdSJgoP2a88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdSJgoP2a88
- FridgeSeal 5y ago
  > will almost certainly have backwards-compatible zSeries or System i hardware running literally 30-40 year old programs. But like, isn’t that a them problem? If you want to calcify your compute layer, don’t be surprised when the rest of the industry moves on, and possibly does things that aren’t compatible anymore? If they want to keep running that software, I think it’s their responsibility to either evolve their software to keep up, or deal with the fact that they’ll have to run their own old version/fork when the time comes. If they contribute to the kernel, I would have thought their perspective would have been represented on one of these threads by now, as they seem to get posted at pretty much every event hahaha. Maybe they do and I totally missed it as well.

ilammy 5y ago

> old, arcane and unused? But it is used by retrocomputing enthusiasts. Linux has been supported by them for the platforms they care. They gladly hold up the bar “now you have to support Linux yourself”, with C compilers already existing and being supported by someone else. With Rust becoming a build-time dependency, things suddenly turn into “you're not getting any Linux until you port rustc to your platform and then make sure it's working there at all times”.

Mic92 5y ago
So everyone is not getting a more secure/safe system because a small minority wants to run Linux on old computers? That does not sound fair to me. Why can't they not use old versions of Linux as well.

kmeisthax 5y ago

Counterpoint: not all of this is actually going unused. Yes, Debian popcon is going to show the vast majority of users on x86 and ARM; but that is primarily consumer use cases. When you get into embedded, you will start to see all sorts of weird arcane setups that actual businesses rely upon. Case in point: this commercial kitchen appliance that is actually a DOS PC built with modern parts. [0] Not to mention the startlingly high number of large businesses running off of IBM server hardware. Much of that is actually legacy stuff that's been rebranded and massively upgraded over the years. A company that bought into System/360 in the 80s or AS/400 in the early 90s will almost certainly have backwards-compatible zSeries or System i hardware running literally 30-40 year old programs. Point is, there's lots of business critical crap running on things other than x86 or ARM. I only used retrocomputing as an example because I had a good anecdote for it. Businesses treat computers as if retrocomputing was also somehow mission critical and they pay handsomely for the privilege. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdSJgoP2a88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdSJgoP2a88

FridgeSeal 5y ago
> will almost certainly have backwards-compatible zSeries or System i hardware running literally 30-40 year old programs. But like, isn’t that a them problem? If you want to calcify your compute layer, don’t be surprised when the rest of the industry moves on, and possibly does things that aren’t compatible anymore? If they want to keep running that software, I think it’s their responsibility to either evolve their software to keep up, or deal with the fact that they’ll have to run their own old version/fork when the time comes. If they contribute to the kernel, I would have thought their perspective would have been represented on one of these threads by now, as they seem to get posted at pretty much every event hahaha. Maybe they do and I totally missed it as well.