[Novalug] Older PCs get no respect!

[Angelo Bertolli]

On Sat, 14 Apr 2007 01:28:44 -0400
Russell Evans <russell-evans at qwest.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 14 Apr 2007 00:31:09 -0400
> "Angelo Bertolli" <angelo at freeshell.org> wrote:
> 
> > I haven't followed this entire thread, but I did want to make the
> > comment that it's impractical for Linux to try to support every piece
> > of hardware ever made.  Maybe there is some validity in the original
> > complaint about keyboards or mice, but in general when something
> > becomes obsolete, it hurts Linux to spend time and effort to try to
> > keep it working.
> > 
> > With that said, I've run Linux recently on P2's with no problem.
> > Even P2's with the serial keyboards.  I have to say, I really haven't
> > run into a PC yet that I couldn't install Linux on.
> 
> You miss the point of Linux, there will be support for old hardware as
> long as there is someone with the knowledge and the desire to support
> it. I have old hardware that isn't supported in distributions. There are
> people still using the hardware I have and the software to make it
> work is available as patches, cvs repositories, and tarballs. 
> 
> It may be impractical for Linux distributions to support every piece
> of hardware, but for the Linux community, it isn't an issue. 

I don't see how what you're saying is different from what I said, except maybe the way I phrased "to spend time and effort to try to keep it working."  Do you think there's a big difference in the development distro-side vs the development community-side?  I don't.  I don't think there are developers who are using significantly old hardware who are interested in keeping really old obsolete hardware working.

I think Linux is self-correcting in this way, but I see an overall force of efficiency at work too.  I bet there's a correlation between the newness of a developer's system and how productive they are.  At least I don't think the developers running 386's are doing most of the work. ;)

Angelo