Characterizing it as "ancient" intentionally misses the point. What it is is functional, and paid for. And likely, already installed and in use somewhere (like all of my 32-bit systems).
It's not just a matter of "buy something better." That's easy. What's not easy is that a) that adds another machine to the waste stream, instead of continuing to get use from it, and b) someone has to take the time to set up the new machine, test things, migrate services, etc. to functionally replace the old one. That takes time and effort, too, multiplied by the number of such systems out there. People are saying "you can't trust the popcorn data," but that kind of sounds to me like people looking to support the answer they've already chosen and discounting evidence to the contrary. I understand that continuing to support things isn't free. I've offered to contribute, but my offers have all been met with descriptions of how hard someone else is working, rather than any description of how I might help. Lastly, there was a description of a problem that "needed to be fixed," but also "can't be reproduced." Well, if it can't be reproduced, then by definition, it can't be fixed. That's basic troubleshooting. If it can't be reproduced and doesn't seem to affect most systems, then it's barely more than a rumor and deserves no attention until it's substantiated further. So it doesn't make sense to throw that on the pile of "look how hard it is to support old hardware." Yes, there are challenges. Lots of them. But that's not one of them. I've asked before and I'll ask again - and perhaps it's time for someone to contact me off list to discuss details - how can I help with support for i386? I have just enough software training to be dangerous and may be able to help carry some of the actual load here, instead of just asking for more free support. Sent from my mobile device. ________________________________ From: Marc Haber <mh+debian-de...@zugschlus.de> Sent: Monday, May 20, 2024 02:35 To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Suggestions about i386 support On Sun, 19 May 2024 20:19:12 +0200, Ben Hutchings <b...@decadent.org.uk> wrote: >The plan is to keep i386 as a partial architecture that can be used as >a "foreign architecture" on systems where amd64 is the main >architecture. Many people using ancient hardware such as a T60 thinkpad say that's not enough for them. I can partly understand both sides though. Greetings Marc -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Rhein-Neckar, DE | Beginning of Wisdom " | Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
