[Elv13]

To be fair, "old hardware" is kind of frozen in time by definition. DSL is what it is. If you want to play with hardware with 32mb of ram, it does what it does. It isn't really an OS you want to "use" or "expand upon". I would not suggest to connect it to the Internet or expect any kind of updates, security or otherwise.

The main case for it at this point is retro computing. Most retro computing enthusiasts run era correct OS (MacOS7-9, Mac OS X, Win9x, DOS, AIX/IRIX/SunOS/HPUX, BeOS, Amiga 3x, etc). Those are not getting security updates either.

I put it in the same category as Haiku, Visopsys, AROS and ReactOS, fun toy for older computers. Not very relevant as day-to-day. I still have and expand a collection of live CDs for the P3/PR era laptop. Again, those don't get security updates, but are fun to explore.

Personally, I am more into Linux window managers (and AwesomeWM maintainer) to recreate the interesting concepts from those OS rather than rice 90s silicon. However I really enjoyed using a Pentium1 laptop full time for a few months in university in the late 00's just to prove a point. But for that I compiled my own OS rather than use a distro. If you want to get the most out of these machine, that's the way.

[lproven]

> To be fair, "old hardware" is kind of frozen in time by definition.

No, not at all.

It's a continuously-moving baseline, because it's relative to now. And where "old" begins is a judgement call.

So, for instance, one useful definition is "not capable of usefully running a contemporary OS."

Since all current mainstream Linuxes (Ubuntu, Fedora, even Arch, etc.) are 64-bit that implies a 32-bit machine. One with a reasonable amount of RAM for the time, a gigabyte or two say, but which can't be upgraded. Intel Atom chips were mostly 32-bit until a decade and a bit ago. Core Solo was quite quick but 32-bit only.

Some early 64-bit chips have 32-bit firmware and so can't run a 32-bit OS.

So there is a moving baseline of machines that can't take >=4GB RAM, can only boot a 32-bit OS, maybe have 1 CPU core, but were made in the 1st decade of this century and remain fully-functional, with wifi etc.

DSL isn't very useful on such kit, and if it works, it's insecure.

So, no, it's not frozen in time, and no, a never-updated 20YO snapshot isn't very useful.

[anthk]

Haiku has 3D support on some AMD GPUs.