Linux 7.2 has landed, dragging x86 timing clean out of the nineties by making the Time Stamp Counter mandatory.
I wrote up a quick article on why ditching those ancient legacy fallbacks is good housekeeping, plus a few other bits like cache-aware scheduling and memory tweaks worth noting.
Is anyone still using legacy hardware? If so, what do you use it for?
You must log in or # to comment.
Just a quick reminder: NetBSD still has it and will very likely in the foreseeable future
I mean what can’t run NetBSD? I feel like we should start writing drivers in rumpkernels instead of writing drivers for our OS’s.
It makes more sense to do this in a major upgrade like from kernel 6 to 7 but some cleanup is good.
major upgrade like from kernel 6 to 7
What do you mean? The Linux kernel doesn’t follow SemVer.
The 6.19 -> 7.0 version bump didn’t have any more inherent meaning than 7.0 -> 7.1 or 7.1 -> 7.2.
Yay, reduced functionality 🥳
How dare they. We should also demand that they bring back support for i386 and SUN-4.
My man were talking about hardware from like the 90s lol. Linux is amazing on keeping old hardware going, but even it has to move on at some point.
Virtually nobody is going to run kernel 7.2 on a 90s CPU without a time stamp chip. Its good practice to prune old and largely unused features once and a while
With an ifdef.
No, cause that means keeping that code maintained when things change too. So basically, no difference
Why on earth you are still relying on 30+ year old CPU’s? Are you a supermarket owner on a third world country?
Some people are.
Maybe, but I think that they will not upgrade the system, even without this change there is no reason to use a 7.x kernel on a 30+ Yeats old hardware
I’m pretty sure any Rpi is more powerful, smaller, and more efficient than any computer hardware from 30 years ago lol.
True, but imagine the cost of having to set that up as a third world market owner
Yup. Linux isn’t what it used to be anymore.
You’re right, it’s way better.
You make it sound like no one can just go keep the older hardware alive by forking.
I love the “just fork it” argument.
Look, Elon, maybe we can’t solo a project like that if we’re still using old hardware, okay?
Sorry if that made you frown behind your shades. Ask the poolside waiter for a other cocktail.
I mean, most of the success of Linux comes from the freedom to solve local issues the way you want.
There have come lots of issues solved with a departure from the project from a need that drove the change. Want Debian without systemd? Devuan.
So yes, literally, if it’s important to you, you can fork it. Whether that takes a big lift or not doesn’t mean you’re any less free to do so.
The fairy tale of fork freedom, just like the fairy tale of market freedom.
Y’all are really pathetic.
"downvotes won’t change the reality, corpo boot lickers
You are wrong and incapable of admitting it. Downvoting your comment is an efficient way of signaling that.
This happens every time I point put that losing these “old” kernel capabilities is in fact a loss.
Let them be stupid about it, all the code still exists to undo these bad decisions one day. It’ll just be more work than it would otherwise be to fix what they broke.
I put them in the same category as AI sycophants, they can’t see three feet beyond their own nose.
Why don’t you support a Linux distro that runs on prehistoric hardware?
It’s very easy to spend other peoples time than offer your own for something you clearly don’t care enough about.
If you missed the comment. Previous kernel version is supported until 2035. That’s 9 more years. You need any longer than that?
What exactly is the utility of the code, though? Is it so these really ancient machines stay up-to-date/secure in societal collapse or something?
I’d be sympathetic to that, but the chips this depreciates are so rare that you won’t find many to use, in that scenario… and in the rare exceptions, using an older kernel version would be fine.
How many hundreds of megabytes were saved by removing it?
Also an AMD K5 or IBM/Cyrix 6x86 might not be in your Steam Deck but that doesn’t make it a one off exception. There’s no reason we should have to use outdated software when the reason the new software doesn’t work is artificial. Apple does that kind of nonsense, Linux shouldn’t.
…You’re talking about saved megabytes being trivial, in reference to machines that have megabytes of memory in total?
It’s not about saved space anyway, it’s about support. Some features are compromised by the requirement to keep this old code, though I’m not qualified to say to what extent.
And again, who is “we?”
Who’s still using a Cyril 6x86 that isn’t doing it for personal/recreational reasons? If society collapses, how many would there be to use?
I’d be sympathetic if we were talking about, say, a Pentium 4, but just don’t buy the narrative that this is inconveniencing anyone. These things do not exist as utilitarian devices anymore. It’s not making anyone use outdated, insecure software that isn’t choosing to do so anyway.
Some features are compromised by the requirement to keep this old code, though I’m not qualified to say to what extent.
“Trust me bro”
Who’s still using a Cyril 6x86 that isn’t doing it for personal/recreational reasons?
In your estimation clearly nobody. You’re evading the question of why they should be artificially forced to use outdated software by denying enthusiasts who want to use a kernel built by an enthusiast and then by a bunch of enthusiasts for enthusiasts exist. 🤦♂️
Short-sighted kids are a little more common after we fired the mentors and documenters in our field: they don’t know how or why we did such dumb things before and thus can’t avoid them. It’s like how America fired all its inspectors and now suffer en masse from salmonella and explosive diarrhea from tainted food: causal.
