Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 11 Jun 1997 07:43:29 -0700 (PDT) | From | Rob <> | Subject | Re: "obsolete" hardware |
| |
On Wed, 11 Jun 1997, yuri mironoff wrote:
> > > On Tue, 10 Jun 1997, Trevor Jenkins wrote: > > > > > I'm looking forward to the day when my venerable old 386 can be > > retired from running MS-DOS/Windows 3.1 to the freedom of running > > Linux. If by the time I do that I'm expected to bleed because > > Linux will then only working on cutting edge stuff then I'll not > > remain a Linux supporter for long. > > > > There's a difference between wanting and having. The real beauty of > > Linux, for me and I suspect others, is that we can run multi-user > > services/servers on hardware that cannot run Windows 3.1 let alone > > run Windows 95. > > Of course there is another way of looking at this. There are lots > of current and upcoming applications that do require lots of horsepower. > By the same token there are fewer and fewer (if any) applications being > written that target a 486 (let alone a 386) as a minimum requirement. Try > running anything X/Motif based and you'll see what I mean. If Linux > developers concentrate their attention on trying to be compatible with > obsolete hardware as opposed to taking advantage of cutting edge features > other operating systems will overtake Linux by running slower on faster > hardware - not exactly a pretty picture.
I ran X/Motif on my dx2-66 and dx4-100, both ran very admirably.
> > Bottom line is I'd rather say "Linux runs faster on a quad P7" than > "Linux still runs on my 2mb 386" a year from now. A well executed design > means nothing unless it performs. Nothing PERFORMS on a 386. Lets not > loose sight of our goals here for the sake of keeping backward > compatibility.
But if you run stuff that doesn't need a high-power PERFORMING processor, then whats the point. use what you need, not what you don't need.
> > Take as a warning the longevity of the PC bus architecture. Would you > care to guess why we're still stuck with it? Backward compatibility. Its a > dirty word. > > Regards, > > Y. > > P.S. I skipped a more than a couple of lunches to upgrade to my > first Pentium. Not that many really - but it was definitely worth it. ;) >
| |