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tyfon | 3 months ago

I have a dual pentium pro 200 that runs gentoo and openbsd, but rust doesn't ship i586 binaries, only i686+. So I would need to compile on a separate computer to use any software that is using rust.

There is already an initrd package tool I can't use since it is rust based, but I don't use initrd on that machine so it is not a problem so far.

The computer runs modern linux just fine, I just wish the rust team would at least release an "i386" boostrap binary that actually works on all i386 like all of the other compilers.

"We don't care about retro computers" is not a good argument imho, especially when there is an easy fix. It was the same when the Xorg project patched out support for RAMDAC and obsoleted a bunch of drivers instead of fixing it easily. I had to fix the S3 driver myself to be able to use my S3 trio 64v+ with a new Xorg server.

/rant off

discuss

order

cogman10|3 months ago

This sounds like it's fun. However, I have to ask, why should the linux world cater to supporting 30 year old systems? Just because it scratches an itch?

You can grab a $150 NUC which will run circles around this dual pentium pro system while also using a faction of the power.

You obviously have to do a lot of extra work, including having a second system, just to keep this old system running. More work than it'd take to migrate to a new CPU.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/KAMRUI-AK1PLUS-Processor-Computer-Eth...

grayhatter|3 months ago

> You can grab a $150 NUC

I grew up without money, it makes me laugh when I read comments like this. You can just, yeah when you're fortunate enough to have a strong support system; you can.

My understanding is that the systems are not meaningfully common, and are hobbyist archs. But the idea that dropping support is fine because you can just throw money at it is so incredibly divorced from reality that I actually feel bad for anyone that believes this.

I deeply believe that if you don't like what a maintainer of FOSS code has done, you should fork the project. Admittedly that's a very onerous suggestion. But more important than that, you should help people when you can. If you're deciding to drop support for a bunch of people because it makes your job easier or simpler, when you don't need to. You're the bad guy in the story. That's the way this announcement has been written, and most reasonable people object to that kind of behavior. Selfishness should feel a bit offensive to everyone.

tyfon|3 months ago

The system is actually running fine standalone since I have been able to avoid rust software.

As to why it should cater to it, it's more that there is no need to remove something that already works just to remove it.

It is possible to compile rustc on another system so it supports i586 and below. Just a small change in the command line options. And it doesn't degrade the newer systems.

I have plenty of faster machines, I just enjoy not throwing things away or making odd systems work. It's called having fun :)

gpm|3 months ago

> "We don't care about retro computers" is not a good argument imho,

It absolutely is. If you want to do the work to support <open source software> for <purpose> you're welcome to do so, but you aren't entitled to have other people do so. There's some narrow exceptions like accessibility support, but retro computing ain't that.

ondra|3 months ago

Pentium Pro is the first i686 CPU, so you should be fine.

dontlaugh|3 months ago

Surely retro hardware is fine with retro software.

ForHackernews|3 months ago

I mean... Pentium Pro is 30 years old at this point. I don't think it's unreasonable that modern software isn't targeting those machines.