Two Decades Late: Mainline Linux Kernel Getting Keyboard / Mouse Driver For SGI Octane

[skeevy420]

I wouldn't mind going full retard RGB myself, is that keyboard available in other layouts than US?

Not that I'm aware of, no. They are removable and interchangeable so as long as the layout shares the same keys as the standard US QWERTY layout then that layout can be made. Like, US Dvorak is able to be setup but US Programmer's Dvorak isn't because the numbers and symbols are different with Programmer's Dvorak.

Round keycaps are hard to find. If anyone knows where to get custom RGB round keycaps made, I'd appreciate a link.

I really don't care for the font this keyboard uses...but it's not like I'm looking at that most of the time and all I really see is the RGB rainbow wave out of the corner of my eye when I'm looking at my screen an typing and I like it. It was very distracting for the first week or so but now I don't even notice.

But for $43, the Black Friday price, I'm happy with it.

[starshipeleven]

Hmm....shelving IA-32 binaries because its outdated. But adding stuff for 20+ year old hardware that maybe 5 or 6 people still own or use. I get the relevance.

Did the kernel drop support for executing 32bit binaries? It still has support for executing 16bit stuff too, wtf are you talking about.

[edwaleni]

Did the kernel drop support for executing 32bit binaries? It still has support for executing 16bit stuff too, wtf are you talking about.

LOL. They changed their mind but the fact it was seriously discussed is what I am talking about.

https://ubuntu.com/blog/statement-on-32-bit-i386-packages-for-ubuntu-19-10-and-20-04-lts

[kpedersen]

Did the kernel drop support for executing 32bit binaries? It still has support for executing 16bit stuff too, wtf are you talking about.

Technically the kernel is dropping a *type* of 32-bit support:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI

That said, I don't know if they have followed through with it yet. It is deprecated at least.

I wonder if more people use this than SGI hardware.

[pracedru]

Bloat is only a problem if it gets in your way by say, using to much RAM or disk space.
Neither is the case in this instance.

[strtj]

LOL. They changed their mind but the fact it was seriously discussed is what I am talking about.

https://ubuntu.com/blog/statement-on-32-bit-i386-packages-for-ubuntu-19-10-and-20-04-lts

The Ubuntu distribution and what they choose to support or not support is very different from the mainline Linux kernel. Please do not confuse the two.

[starshipeleven]

LOL. They changed their mind but the fact it was seriously discussed

You mean Ubuntu seriously discussed for their own little hobby distro.

I'm not seeing a Linux kernel mailing list link for that discussion so everyone else would have been unaffected (for example Debian)

[starshipeleven]

Technically the kernel is dropping a *type* of 32-bit support:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI

That's not *the* 32-bit API, it is a weird experimental API that tried to expose more x86_64 features while still using 32bit memory pointers and address space.

It is a cool thing but none in his right mind used that (which is why it is deprecated and isn't even compiled by default), applications are either legacy 32bit and need the true and only 32-bit API or are 64bit and need the true and only 64bit API.

[abott]

Imagine people bitching a few hundred lines of code enabling an entire line of, while dated, never before usable hardware. That's great, allows us to benchmark and use it to get a better understanding of how it worked. That's worth a few hundred lines of code every time.

If you want to remove it later, that's fine. But if it's not hurting or being a maintaince burden, keep it in. And if it does get removed, you still have the code in git to revive. That's the entire point of git.

[muncrief]

Well, while I love old hardware like this because it's from back in my heyday, I'm not so sure it's worth spending development time on supporting such ancient machines. On the other hand many developers are working for free, or nearly free, so in that case I guess they should be able to work on pretty much anything they want.

They were awesome machines back in the day though.

As you can tell, I'm a bit torn and not quite sure what to think about it.