A while back there was some debate about the Linux kernel dropping support for some very old GPUs. (I can’t remember the exact models, but they were roughly from the late 90’s)
It spurred a lot of discussion on how many years of hardware support is reasonable to expect.
I would like to hear y’alls views on this. What do you think is reasonable?
The fact that some people were mad that their 25 year old GPU wouldn’t be officially supported by the latest Linux kernel seemed pretty silly to me. At that point, the machine is a vintage piece of tech history. Valuable in its own right, and very cool to keep alive, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the devs to drop it after two and a half decades.
I think for me, a 10 year minimum seems reasonable.
And obviously, much of this work is for little to no pay, so love and gratitude to all the devs that help keep this incredible community and ecosystem alive!
And don’t forget to Pay for your free software!!!
Some 10 years ago, my GPU died and I had to use a TNT2 for 3 months. until I could pay for a replacement. Think about what cards you have laying around you may have to use if your GPU dieds today. I feel 25 years is a good cut off point. No one should be using pre year 2000 PC’s as a daily driver.
Current hardware will end up unsafe to use on the internet because of lack of firmware updates. long before Linux stops supporting them.
Reto PC’s are there own thing and should be software from the sameist time.