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> Linux has stable userland ABI. I managed to run a gui binary from Slackware 12 (from 2007) in a chroot The key word is chroot here, and managed. Sure, a tech
by est31 5y ago
> Linux has stable userland ABI. I managed to run a gui binary from Slackware 12 (from 2007) in a chroot
The key word is chroot here, and managed. Sure, a technology enthusiast might manage to run binaries from 2007 on a chroot, as in, after having invested hours of work to find an outdated copy of an entire distro and then wasting gigabytes of hard drive space on making it work. But this doesn't help the average linux gamer who just wants their downloaded game from 5 years ago to still work. Nor does it help the ISV vendor who wants to sell GUI software that can be used on modern linuxes as well.
- jcelerier 5y ago> after having invested hours of work to find an outdated copy of an entire distro you mean docker run -it debian/eol:potato /bin/bash ? (debian potato was released in 2000 for the curious)
- okanat 5y agoDocker is saying chroot but differently. It doesn't help with the normie users.
- jcelerier 5y agosure but it's not hours either - one could reasonably whip a small GUI with dialog box like window's compatibility one where you can run a particular software in whatever distro of yore
- kelnos 5y agoI think you're missing the point. This is all still a terrible user experience for the stated consumer: a relatively non-technical person who found an old game binary and just wants to run it. The only acceptable user experience for this sort of thing is "double click on the icon and it just runs".
- jcelerier 5y ago> The only acceptable user experience for this sort of thing is "double click on the icon and it just runs". maybe, but absolutely no OS provides this as of today.