[FirmwareBurner]

>It's sad to see old hardware support getting dropped like that. They are still good machines as servers and desktop terminals

How many 32 bit PCs are still actively in used at scale to make that argument? Linux devs are now missing kernel regression bugs on 64bit Core 2 Duo hardware because not enough people are using them anymore to catch and report these bugs, and those systems are newer and way more capable for daily driving than 32 bit ones. So then if nobody uses Core 2 Duo machines anymore, how many people do you think are using 32bit Pentium 4/Athlon XP era machines to make that argument?

But let's pretend you're right, and assume there's hoards of Pentium 4 users out there refusing to upgrade for some bizarre reason, and are unhappy they can't run the latest Linux, then using a Pentium 4 with its 80W TDP as a terminal would be an insane waste of energy when that's less capable than some no-name Android table with a 5W ARM SoC which can even play 1080p Youtube while the Pentium 4 cannot even open a modern JS webpage. Even most of the developing world now has more capable mobile devices in their pockets and don't have use for the Pentium 4 machines that have long been landfilled.

And legacy industrial systems still running Pentium 4 HW, are just happy to keep running the same Windows XP/Embedded they came from the factory since those machines are airgapped and don't need to use latest Linux kernel for their purpose.

So sorry, but based on this evidence, your argument is literally complaining for the sake of complaining about problems that nobody outside of retro computing hobbyists have who like using old HW for tinkering with new SW as a challenge. But it's not a real issue for anyone. So what I don't get is the entitled expectations that the SW industry should keep writing new SW for free to keep it working for your long outdated 25+ year old CPU just because you, for some reason, refuse to upgrade to more modern HW that can be had for free.

There are good faith arguments to be had about the state of forced obsolescence in the industry with Microsoft, Apple, etc, but this is not one of them.

>Are there any good Linux distros left with 32-bit x86 support? Do I have to switch to NetBSD?

Yes there are, tonnes: AntiX, Devuan, Damn Small Linux, Tiny Core Linux, etc

[Traubenfuchs]

> 80W TDP as a desktop terminal would be an insane waste of energy when that's less capable than some no-name Android table with a 5W ARM SoC which can even paly 1080p Youtube while the Pentium 4 cannot

Insane how far hardware got: the pentium 4 engineers probably felt like the smartest people alive and now a pentium 4 looks almost as ridiculous and outdated to us as vacuum tube computers.

[arcade79]

What I find truly insane is how we're "wasting" the hardware.

I ran a mailserver for thousands of people on a 486 DX 33Mhz. It had smtp, pop3 and imap. It was more than powerful enough to handle it with ease.

I had a Pentium 3 w/1GB of RAM, and it was a supremely capable laptop.

These days I have a a machine from 2018 or 2019, which I upgraded to 32G of RAM and I added an NVME drive in addition to the spinning rust earlier this year.. because firefox got (extremely, more than a minute to start the browser) sluggish due to an HDD instead of NVME.

Now, it's obvious that an NVME drive is superior, but it surprises me how incredibly lackadaisical we've gotten with resource usage. It surprises me how little "extra" we get, except ads that requires more and more resources. Sure, we've got higher resolution photos, higher resolution videos, and now AI will require vast resources (which of course is cool). At the same time, we don't get that much more utility out of our computers.

[FirmwareBurner]

>What I find truly insane is how we're "wasting" the hardware.

Only if you ignore the business economic realities of the world we live in. Unless you work at hyperscaleres of MS/google/meta where every fraction of percent optimization save millions of dollars, nobody is pays SW engineers to optimize SW for old consumer devices because it's money wasted you won't recoup so you offload it on the customer to buy better HW. Rinse and repeat.

>I had a Pentium 3 w/1GB of RAM, and it was a supremely capable laptop.

Why isn't it supremely capable anymore? It will still be just as capable if you run the same software from 1999 on it. Or do you expect to run 2025 SW on it?

[gary_0]

Chips that old would be on a ~100nm process node, which is ancient. Anything using Flintstone transistors like those isn't going to hold up.

> the pentium 4 engineers probably felt like the smartest people alive

The P4's NetBurst architecture had some very serious issues, so that might not be true. NetBurst assumed that 10GHz clock speeds would soon be a thing, and some of the engineers back then might have had enough insight to guess that this approach was based on an oversimplified view of semiconductor industry trends. The design took a lot of stupid risks, such as the ridiculously long instruction pipeline, and they were always unlikely to pay off.

[guappa]

> that's less capable than some no-name Android table

You cannot run the software you want on that device, so I don't see how you can claim that.

[FirmwareBurner]

Did you read the comment I was replying to? They said old 32 bit systems can still be kept around to be used as a terminal. I replied saying that Android tablets can also be used as terminals with the right SW if that's what you're after.

Or if you have specific X86 terminal SW, use a PC with a 64 bit CPU if you want to run modern PC SW. They've been making them since 2003. That's 23 years of used 64bit HW on the market that you can literally get for free at this point.

Or keep using your old 32 bit system to run your old 32 bit terminal SW. Nobody's taking away your ability to run your old 32 bit version of the SW when new 64 bit SW comes out.