Re: [opensuse] legalities

Per Jessen wrote:
Richard Creighton wrote:


It is the collection of support software that becomes the personality
of the distribution and it is also the reason our old 486 machines
won't run anymore.


Uh, I'm not sure I can quite follow you. If the openSUSE project built
the distro for the 386 instruction set, the old 486 machines would
still work fine.


However, I am pretty sure the project has not been built with that
instruction set in mind. It would be an interesting exercise to try but
I'm not sure there is enough demand for 386 only code to induce anyone
to undertake such a huge project. All the libraries, as well as the
programs themselves would have to be recompiled.

It is these neat packages of music, graphics, editors and what-not,
that depend on instructions that the poor old 486 processor simply has
no concept of.


If there is code containing 586 or 686 specific instructions, it
obviously won't work on anything that does not have support for those.
However, regular C code can be compiled not to use such instructions.


I think there are programs that won't convert very well, ones that
utilize the MMX instructions for instance, or other 5-686 extensions to
the 386 instruction set. Alternative code could be written but it
isn't just a matter of just setting a compiler switch I don't think.

So while Linux itself can be compiled to run in a mode that is
compatible with the old box, it is unlikely the rest of any modern
distro will do so as well.


Actually, I think it's quite likely that openSUSE could.


Even if you are right about the OSS portion of the openSuSE distro, what
would you propose about the NON-OSS portion of the distro? Stuff like
Firefox or Thunderbird or ... well, you name it. If the source code
isn't available, how do you propose to make that run on the 486? Hey,
I'm all for it but I really don't think it is very likely in practice,
as much as I hate to admit it. I'm an old fogey and I, like my old 486
machine, am a relic of the past and would like to feel useful well into
the future, but I know time marches on so I am thankful that Linux will
run on as old and varied equipment as it does and I am also glad that it
will run on some of the most modern equipment available too.

I challange a user of VISTA or even XP to take its' kernel and boot on
a 486...never mind all its bells and whistles, just the
kernel....


I have a suspicion you might be surprised. There's probably still some
OS2 stuff lurking around in Vista.



I never accused Microsoft of being inventive or original but I'm sure
that they have modified the original OS/2 code they got from IBM enough
so that it will no longer run on a 486 :)


Richard
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