On Thu, May 05, 2016 at 06:57:22PM -0400, Steve Litt wrote:
> > Not worth the effort, I'd say. Jessie still has four years of
> > security support (I don't think Devuan has the manpower to provide
> > security support for 40k+ packages alone after Debian ends it), and
> > if you'd _still_ run that museal machine at that time, you can
> > reconsider.
>
> We need to pick our battles. I bought a Pentium II, a 686, in 1998.
> That's a little over 18 years ago. The last 32 bit Pentium, the Pentium
> 4, stopped selling in August 2008: That's 8 years ago.

Actually, roughly half of P4 models supported amd64. I don't know when
i386-only ones stopped being produced, but I assume it was a good time
before 2008.

> And since 2004, you could, and many people did, buy 64 bit machines. A
> 586 or 32 bit machine is doubtlessly so old that getting one replacement
> part would cost quite enough to just dumpsterize the computer (unless one
> has a basement full of cannibalizable computers).

Actually, there's still a 32-bit P4 running at one of my customers. A samba
file server -- not something you need a fat machine for.

I do have a 64-bit P4 in my own cellar, doing backups.

But these are P4, not 586. You can't even attach a non-ancient disk to the
latter, so file serving purposes are out. A vast majority of uses that
don't need a big disk are better served by a cheap-ass ARM SoC like RPi (if
you want gigabit ethernet, most of RPi's competitors have it). Electricity
cost difference will pay off that investment in a couple months...

So, the only reason I can fathom for using a 586 is if you have some
specialty hardware with an ancient connector, like an ISA card. But those
invariably require software of matching age that's unlikely to run on a
modern distribution.

Thus, I don't think there's a point in supporting 586 in a future release.

--
A tit a day keeps the vet away.