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Why not use one of the *BSD? E.g. the newest NetBSD still supports i486 class processors: https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i38

Why not use one of the *BSD? E.g. the newest NetBSD still supports i486 class processors: https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/

valeg 3y ago
Second that. OpenBSD is a good choice as well. No reason at all to burden GNU/Linux with all that legacy stuff.
- badsectoracula 3y ago
  But "burdening" *BSDs is fine? :-P
  - guenthert 3y ago
    OpenBSD might work accidentally, but NetBSD intentionally supports old hardware. Now why someone wants to run current software on museum-piece hardware is quite beyond me though.
    - badsectoracula 3y ago
      > NetBSD intentionally supports old hardware So does Linux (486SX is the minimum supported CPU), there is nothing inherent to NetBSD about supporting old hardware than the developers wanting to do so. > Now why someone wants to run current software on museum-piece hardware is quite beyond me though. I can think a lot of reasons, e.g. keeping them useful. While there are many things that old hardware cannot do, there are things it can do as long as there is software to provide the functionality. AFAICT the article isn't asking writing new software that runs on the old hardware, it is asking to let existing software that could run on the old hardware remain accessible.
      - Almondsetat 3y ago
        BSDs are complete operating systems, Linux is just a kernel
badsectoracula 3y ago
So does Linux[0], except some 486SX variants. You are going to find way more software for Linux to make your computer practically useful and pretty much all information out there is for Linux, so unless you have a reason to explicitly prefer BSD, it is much better to install Linux than any of the BSDs. In fact chances are Linux will support your old hardware better than most, if not all, BSDs. [0] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/x86/Kconfig.cpu?h=v6.7 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...

Why not use one of the *BSD? E.g. the newest NetBSD still supports i486 class processors: https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/

valeg 3y ago

Second that. OpenBSD is a good choice as well. No reason at all to burden GNU/Linux with all that legacy stuff.

badsectoracula 3y ago
But "burdening" *BSDs is fine? :-P
- guenthert 3y ago
  OpenBSD might work accidentally, but NetBSD intentionally supports old hardware. Now why someone wants to run current software on museum-piece hardware is quite beyond me though.
  - badsectoracula 3y ago
    > NetBSD intentionally supports old hardware So does Linux (486SX is the minimum supported CPU), there is nothing inherent to NetBSD about supporting old hardware than the developers wanting to do so. > Now why someone wants to run current software on museum-piece hardware is quite beyond me though. I can think a lot of reasons, e.g. keeping them useful. While there are many things that old hardware cannot do, there are things it can do as long as there is software to provide the functionality. AFAICT the article isn't asking writing new software that runs on the old hardware, it is asking to let existing software that could run on the old hardware remain accessible.
    - Almondsetat 3y ago
      BSDs are complete operating systems, Linux is just a kernel

badsectoracula 3y ago

So does Linux[0], except some 486SX variants. You are going to find way more software for Linux to make your computer practically useful and pretty much all information out there is for Linux, so unless you have a reason to explicitly prefer BSD, it is much better to install Linux than any of the BSDs. In fact chances are Linux will support your old hardware better than most, if not all, BSDs. [0] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/x86/Kconfig.cpu?h=v6.7 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...