I didn’t know whether to mark this NSFW or not but it’s time to buy a new computer if you haven’t upgraded in multiple decades.
I didn’t know whether to mark this NSFW or not but it’s time to buy a new computer if you haven’t upgraded in multiple decades.
I think older versions of the kernel (that support 486 hw) would still be available to download so someone could use them if they wanted. Not sure what other extre work would be involved though.
The issue is that older kernel versions will lose support and stop getting security updates eventually. I don’t know if there is enough of a community around old CPUs for fixes to be backported by the community.
i love backwards compatibility as much as the next guy, but at some point, if there isn’t enough of a community to backport fixes, there probably aren’t many using them. if a tree falls in the forest, you get the idea.
You wouldn’t want to keep such old equipment connected to a network anyway. That’s only inviting trouble down the line.
What does the age of the hardware have to do with it?
You can run a 486 today with the latest Linux kernel, the latest C library, and the latest utilities. A 486 is not vulnerable to Spectre and Meltdown. It may be more secure than a typical i7.
Come to think of it. Acting as a bastion server may be a legitimate use of a 486 today.