alt Hacker NewsIt's the end of an area, Linux used to be this thing that was running on quite anything and allowing to salvage old computers.
I think that there is a shitload of old desktop and laptop computers from 10 to 15 yrs that are still usable only with a linux distribution and that will not be true anymore.
Now Linux will be in the same lane as osx and windows running after the last shiny new things, and being like: if you want it, buy a new machine that will support it.
Replies
> I think that there is a shitload of old desktop and laptop computers from 10 to 15 yrs that are still usable only with a linux distribution and that will not be true anymore.
For mainstream laptops/desktops, the 32 bit era ended around 2006 (2003, if you were smart and using Athlon 64s instead of rancid Pentium 4).
Netbooks and other really weak devices held out a few years longer, but by 2010, almost everything new on the market, and a good chunk of the second-hand market, was already 64 bits.
Desktops and laptops from 10 to 15 years ago are basically all 64 bit. By the time this removal happens, we'll be at 20 years of almost all that hardware being 64 bit. By the time hardware becomes "retro", you don't need the latest kernel version.
Lots of distros already dropped 32 bit kernel support and it didn't cause much fuss.
You can still run an older kernel. There are the "Super-long-term support" releases that have 10+ year support cycles. Some distros may go even further.
If you install 6.12 today (via e.g. Debian 13) then you'll be good until at least 2035. So removing it now de-facto means it will be removed in >10 years.
And as the article explains, this mostly concerns pretty old systems. Are people running the latest kernel on those? Most of the time probably not. This is really not "running after the last shiny thing". That's just nonsensical extreme black/white thinking.