On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 7:48 PM Stephen John Smoogen <smo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Mon, 19 Oct 2020 at 02:15, Subsentient <thinkingrod...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> I figure I'll add my two cents for as little as that's worth. >> >> Personally, I use extlinux with a custom, barebones configuration. On my >> EFI systems, I use syslinux EFI. I like the simplicity of syntax for >> syslinux's configuration and how small it is, but that's me, and it's not >> going to be everyone's preference. >> >> I also own several legacy BIOS based systems that cannot support EFI, and >> they work fine, including my daily driver Thinkpad T410. >> While I know it will still be possible for *very* advanced Linux users >> such as me to get Fedora working on BIOS systems with my own bootloader of >> choice even if Fedora drops support, it would create a maintenance nuisance >> if I need to boot a recovery ISO etc or reinstall Fedora from scratch, e.g. >> in drive failure. And, of course, most Fedora users can't easily swap out a >> bootloader, they just haven't spent the energy learning those parts of the >> OS. >> >> Though, that would hardly be my concern. As sad as I was to see i686 >> support dropped, I could at least understand the reasoning behind it, given >> how few people used it and how large of a maintenance task it was. I myself >> didn't really use any systems that needed it. This, however, is different. >> >> Personally, I despise GRUB2, that's why I switched to syslinux when >> distros dropped GRUB1. I find GRUB2 very bloated, needlessly complicated, >> with too many magic black boxes. >> That said, dropping BIOS support simply to adopt another bootloader in >> its place is a deeply disturbing proposition. There are many BIOS based >> systems still in service, and there will be for quite some time. >> >> My Thinkpad was manufactured in 2011 and still only supports BIOS. In >> 2012, I started seeing EFI-based PCs on the market due to Windows 8 and >> MSFT's push for secure boot. Apple was an exception, they started using EFI >> as soon as they switched to Intel. The rest of the world remained on BIOS >> until 2012. >> >> Are you seriously considering dropping support for all systems older than >> 8 years of age? Even if I could mostly work around such a decision, it >> would anger me and I imagine a great many other users, purely on >> ideological grounds. I would consider switching distributions, and I've >> been a Fedora loyalist since 2009. >> >> Do you remember when Linux was touted as a lightweight alternative for >> older PCs, and you could install flagship distros on grandma's PC to >> breathe new life into it? I do. I don't want to live in the timeline where >> the only distros that run on such things are puppy linux and similar. >> > > I'am also have Thikpads and MSI running BIOS and some of those machines still are the beast in some terms. Dropping BIOS would pretty much force me to use something else. I don't want to lose Fedora. > I think the issue is that people have rose coloured glasses about how much > 'life' we could get out of someone's older PC... and how old that desktop > was. In the 30 years I have worked in PC/Unix, I would say that before > 2004, it was rare that it breathed new life into 2+ year old technology as > much as that the Linux kernel worked with all the hardware by then. Working > on an 1985 i386 in 1993 with Linux was great, but it was not any faster > than Windows 3.11 for a lot of things. A i486 with Linux was not running as > 'fast' as a i586 with Windows 95 in 1997. You could get some better usage > from older hardware as long as you kept the tasks run meant to run in such > a 'limited' environment. But as soon as Grandpa wanted to open Netscape or > Staroffice.. you would watch a mouse crawl as you ran out of swap. > > Having upgraded lots of "Grand-pa's" computer for 2 decades, I can say > that their computers were rarely older than 4-5 years old until after 2008. > It is only after Moore's law 'broke' after 2003 stopped seeing doubling cpu > speeds every 18 months that trying to keep hardware useful longer than 5 > years has been possible. When clock speeds were no longer doubling and > 'standard' hardware memory bought came in a window of 2GB to 4 GB for a > decade, being able to keep hardware longer really started happening. At > that point, most of the time there was no giant performance boost for most > things people did on the computer and unless you were into gaming, or > professions using a CPU to its max... most people stuck with the old stuff. > > The issue is that while 'moore's' law was no longer doubling every > 18months it was still working and tasks had to be rewritten to work with > more cores/threads/etc. As that happened the software's need for more CPU > power has increased to the point were a 10+ year computer isn't very useful > for 'modern' software (browser and various applications). Instead if you > want to have something work on a 2012 system well.. just use software from > 2012. It is still available. Sure you can install Linux on that 15 year > old computer but if you have to tell the user well you can't actually use a > browser, an editor or half the things you can do on your cheapest > smart-phone.. what use is that computer? > > > >> _______________________________________________ >> devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org >> To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org >> Fedora Code of Conduct: >> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ >> List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines >> List Archives: >> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org >> > > > -- > Stephen J Smoogen. > > _______________________________________________ > devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org > To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org > Fedora Code of Conduct: > https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ > List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines > List Archives: > https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org >
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