OT: fedora, linux and 32 bit software was Re: variable scheduled date

[David Carlson]

A lot of us still have old 32 bit machines that have not died yet, but on
the other hand today there are many good 64 bit machines available for
about $300 to $400.  They have really crappy keyboards, no optical drive
and other shortcomings but fairly decent displays and performance.  You
could buy a tablet and add the missing keyboard, optical drive, USB
splitter and Ethernet port 😐.

David C

On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 10:25 AM, Adrien Monteleone <
adrien.monteleone at gmail.com> wrote:

> How could I forget about servers?
>
> True, 10 year stability is a plus for that case.
>
> As for keeping computers that long, my laptop is a 2007 model.(to be fair,
> it’s a Mac and not relevant to the distro choice issue)
>
> Various family members have a smattering of desktops from the very early
> 2000s, most of them 32bit. They still run fine. (I’ve given them new life
> with various *nix flavors)
>
> A client still has four desktops from the late 90s that we ‘upgraded’ with
> Pentium IIIs and *doubled* the RAM to 1GB. (they were running Lubuntu until
> that got too bloated and now run Debian with LXDE)
>
> I’ve even rescued an old Compaq Laptop with a K6, and an IMB PI with 86MB!
> of RAM with an old Puppy flavor.
>
> The two sticking points that are making old hardware tough to keep running
> don’t have anything to do with the hardware. First, the OS vendors are
> dropping 32bit images so change is forced and decent distro choices getting
> slimmer. (mind you, these aren’t hackers using these things and those users
> obviously aren’t keen on change) Second, most of these users need a decent,
> safe and secure browser. (which have also dropped 32bit support) That more
> than anything is going to force them to change hardware. If it weren’t for
> the bloat of both browsers and websites, those machines would probably
> continue to function just fine for several more years. (and might still as
> long as they aren’t connected to the internet for anything other than
> e-mail)
>
> But I digress as this is all far from the original topic.
>
> Regards,
> Adrien
>
> > On Feb 26, 2018, at 7:29 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> wrote:
> >
> > Adrien,
> >
> > Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >> True, the version in EPEL7 is 2.6.18, one version back, soon to be two
> >> versions back.
> >>
> >> I too was wondering the issue, now I see that essentially, nothing
> >> ever gets back-ported for RHEL, so newer RPMs can’t pull in
> >> dependencies because they don’t exist in the older repositories. They
> >> can provide 10 years of support, because it’s essentially frozen.
> >>
> >> Your experience and explanation makes me glad I never tried RHEL.
> >
> > RHEL is a great server platform.
> > It SUCKS as a desktop platform.
> > I would question why Jean-David chose it for a desktop, because it's
> > really not designed for that.  It is designed for long-term stability,
> > which is exactly counter to being able to frequently upgrade to new
> > software.
> >
> > Besides, who keeps (desktop) computers for 10 years?  I refresh my
> > laptop every 3.
> >
> >> Regards,
> >> Adrien
> >
> > -derek
> >
> >> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> >> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
> >
> > --
> >       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
> >       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
> >       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
> >       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
>
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