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I'm not sure I agree. Open source software also regularly drops support for old hardware and OSes.
by Narishma 1y ago
I'm not sure I agree. Open source software also regularly drops support for old hardware and OSes.
- em3rgent0rdr 1y ago"regularly" is doing a lot of work here. When Linux drops hardware support, we are talking about ancient hardware. An example of a regular drop: Linux 6.15 just a month ago dropped support for 486 (from 1989)!
- SlowTao 1y agoPretty much, you can still get modern distros that support 32bit PowerPC.
- cout 1y agoThat's surprising. What is the 486 missing that Linux needs? Or is it that there are no volunteers to test and maintain Linux on a 486 (as often happens with older architectures)?
- detaro 1y agoIt needs a bunch of compatibility code and the maintainers felt it wasn't worth the effort of taking care of that anymore: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250425084216.3913608-1-mingo@kernel.org/ https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250425084216.3913608-1-mingo@... https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wicfBCyMj_x5BiL32o55jqXfnxgn=X5BZZjA-FFER82Jg@mail.gmail.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wicfBCyMj_x5BiL32o55jqXfn... https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wjCiEk-kc-vOug2GKJdhHKce3vWALbqjybLPcKLHNmEbQ@mail.gmail.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wjCiEk-kc-vOug2GKJdhHKce3...
- teddyh 1y agoOpen source software drops hardware support only when there are nobody left who volunteers to support that hardware. When does this happen? It happens when there are not enough users left of that hardware. As long as there are enough users of some hardware, free software will support it, because the users of that hardware want it to.
- skeeter2020 1y agoIs "regularly" every 2-4 years, or longer? What are your options? With Apple you have none. It's really not a comparable situation.