Guys I truly don’t mean to spam the community but these are legit questions. Yesterday I posted about linux compatibility and computers and every single person gave me knowledge to use and you’re all awesome.
Now my question is, I will undoubtedly be purchasing an older machine, would an older but good running machine still be able to install the latest kernels or versions of distros or are you limited to older versions only, based on the era of your laptop or is it really about the hardware you have? I know ram, disk space, basic stuff like that matters with distros, but I know that will not be a problem. I guess I’m thinking beyond that like processors. are older processors or anything else hold certain machines from being compatible with the newest and greatest kernels? Thanks!
Linux broke compatibility with 386 back in 2012. The kernel maintainers also began considering dropping compatibility with 486 late last year, but as far as I can tell they haven’t actually gone through with it yet (apparently it’s likely to be coming in 6.2).
So, strictly speaking: yes, almost any computer that was ever capable of running Linux should still be capable of running the newest kernel version, with the sole exception of 386s.
Whether it can actually do anything useful beyond getting to a command prompt on a serial terminal is another issue entirely.
They actually discontinued quite a few architectures (in total 15 architectures). But all of them where cancelled, because nobody in their right mind is still running them if not for a youtube video.
Sparc Sun-4, SPARCstation and SPARCserver are probably the best-known ones after 386.
This. My spouse is working on an online business and needed a laptop to carry around to do inventory with. I happen to have an old Asus 32-bit Celeron netbook collecting dust, so I gave it a bit of a wipedown, installed the latest version of Debian with XFCE on it, and let them install what they needed from there.
So if you get a 64-bit machine AT ALL, it will absolutely run the latest versions of Linux.
(Why is this a thing?
Lots of computers in industry are very low-spec. They use less power and have fewer requirements. As long as there are people who use that hardware and/or are willing to port fixes and new kernel features to it, it’ll keep getting updates. You only run into the ‘dropped compatibility’ thing when really no one is using it.)
So the 286 and 8086 are still compatible, then? :P
What about chips from other ancient architectures? Can I run the latest version of Linux on a 6502?
No. My comment was carefully worded: if it could ever run Linux, then it still can (unless it’s a 386). Mainline Linux has always required an MMU, so 8086 and 286 were never capable of running it to begin with! 🤓
They’re dropping support for ia-64 in 6.7, I understand.
Both users will be devastated.