Linux 7.2 has landed, dragging x86 timing clean out of the nineties by making the Time Stamp Counter mandatory.
I wrote up a quick article on why ditching those ancient legacy fallbacks is good housekeeping, plus a few other bits like cache-aware scheduling and memory tweaks worth noting.
Is anyone still using legacy hardware? If so, what do you use it for?
Lots of retro enthusiasts still use legacy hardware for all sorts of reasons… I fear that a fork of the kernel will be necessary in the near future to keep these machines running.
The notion of using Linux to revive old hardware and keep it out of the landfill may not last forever…
There are ultra long term support Linux kernels though.
Linux 6.12 will be supported until at least 2036 for instance.
Or just don’t connect to the public internet and continue using a kernel that works? Even with internet, the attack vectors for such a machine are nearly non existent.
And why do they need to use the latest Linux kernel for that hardware, again?
Security updates if you use it online or copy new binaries to run on it. Even if you’re not worried about hackers, there can still be viruses and malware that destroy your data.
There are LTS versions outside of current.
But more importantly, who runs anything remotely critical on a 486 these days? These machines choke to death on TLS handshakes.
Who said anything about critical?
I just don’t want my hard disk wiped when I decide to try a piece of software.
You aren’t running any relatively recent software on a 486, period. Even if you did and it turned out to be a virus, the chances of it hitting a bug in the kernel are extremely low.
This is just grasping at straws.
Industrial machine controllers frequently run on ancient hardware
And they are very notoriously outdated in terms of software.
Do they run the latest Linux kernel?
I do agree. Maybe I’m little paranoid, but I feel like in some years, recycle old chips will be the only IT available
Just use NetBSD and never look back :)
Linux supports much less old hardware than its competitors.
On the other hand, Linux runs more software than its competitors, and it’s not even close.
You can (compile and) run almost all Linux software on the BSDs.
Cool. Is there any *BSD-only software I would want to run on Linux? No? Then, what’s the point?
FreeBSD’s jails are pretty interesting though, so is NetBSD’s rump kernel. But my point was (especially older) hardware support, not software support. If all you care about is the sheer number of available applications, Windows is there for you. 😉
Your post that it was “not even close” is misleading at best and utterly wrong in total.
I’m sorry, I thought we were comparing BSD to Linux. And why would I use BSD if there isn’t a single piece of software I need that isn’t available on Linux as well, but others, like Kubernetes, aren’t natively supported on BSD.
Regardless, nobody cares about dropping 486 support. NetBSD is a novelty OS at best, and FreeBSD, the most popular BSD out there, doesn’t run on 486 since 2024. Nice attempt at trolling tho.
So is Linux, compared to macOS and Windows. You still use it, as it seems to be just enough for your own needs.
Don’t be ridiculous.
Virtually every SaaS platform runs on Linux. Half of the embedded devices out there run on Linux. 70% of cellphones run on Linux. Essentially, there is no way you would be online without interacting with a Linux-based OS in one way or another.
Even compared to FreeBSD, NetBSD is more of a niche OS for hobbyists.
But NetBSD and FreeBSD can run Linux software as well?
Emulation support doesn’t imply full ABI or driver support.
Otherwise, since Proton is supported for Linux but not BSD, Linux would still be ahead.
It’s much deeper than emulation like you would a PlayStation. Last time I checked you could run steam and proton on FreeBSD
I know how it works. My point is that, if emulated software, be under a hypervisor or an ABI compatibility layer, is considered “supported”, then we could say that Windows applications are supported in Linux, but that’s not entirely true.
More importantly, if I want to run Linux software, I would rather run it on Linux, e.g. Docker and Kubernetes.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted?
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OpenBSD hasn’t been able to run on 386 and 486 for some years now.
Linuxers gonna linux.
I actually learned how to actually use a shell interface when I setup FreeBSD the first time. But other than tinkering with BSD’s on occasion, I really don’t have much experience with them.
To dismiss them outright is baffling to me.