Fedora Developers Discussing Possibility Of Dropping Legacy BIOS Support

[pal666]

In general we need to start dropping legacy subsystems to improve

together with legacy hardware? wasn't it like one of linux strengths?

[Giovanni Fabbro]

It was Phenom II X4 955BE and not the older Phenom with four digit model names. Also the motherboard (Asus M5A78L/USB3) has AM3+ socket and supports FX processors although the chipset might not be the best for those.

The 800-series chipset boards from ASUS had UEFI.

[RahulSundaram]

It looks like they're adopting a zram thing instead. One question about that: when you have a low-RAM system with only, say, 4GB of RAM, they're allocating 2GB of that to compressed swap assuming you get a 2:1 compression, so only another 4GB of usable swap space, but you're only left with 2GB usable out of real physical RAM? So what happens if you still go over the total of 6GB (assuming your data CAN be compressed at 2:1 - which they can't guarantee)? You're just going to get an OOM condition? Seems like a silly idea to me for systems that really need to use swap. Can someone explain the reasoning behind this?

The compression ratio is expected to be more like 3:1 or more (depends on the specific compression algorithm used and they have their own tradeoffs). If there is memory pressure beyond that, earlyoom (which is the default in workstation edition and expected to be default for KDE spin in the next release) kicks in and typically does a much better targeting of processes than OOM killer. If you are interested in the specifics, feel free to participate in the test days and submit your feedback.

[pal666]

I'd rather protect my system with an extra $15 for a power bar with lifetime warranty and equipment insurance (APC) than pay $150 for a power supply where only a $50 one is necessary.

you can't make $50 psu produce correct voltages with good efficiency with any amount of power bars

[Giovanni Fabbro]

Legacy means old, dated, deprecated and superseded by something better.

The last few machines with BIOS were released in 2012. My old broken laptop used BIOS, despite being made in 2012.

However, it's been 8 years already. This does not mean everyone has dropped BIOS though (but some call it legacy because it is in fact old and crusty (since 1980, only a 512-byte bootstrap)).

Fedora just likes to drop old things quick, the Apple way.

8 years is about twice as long as Apple.

When the iPad 1 came out, the support lifecycle for software updates on iPhone and iPad were to be 2 years (the length of time of a US mobile phone subsidy contract), while Mac's were to have 4 years of software updates. They backed away from that policy after the iPad 2 shipped. The iPad 1 did in fact only get 2 years of iOS updates though - iOS 3.x (factory shipped) to 5.x. The iPad 2 got several.

[pal666]

In any case, wasn't that back when they were only putting 1 integer unit per 2 float unit in "modules"? Like, they weren't really 2 proper "cores"?

no, they were really 2 proper cores, just weak ones, which isn't "improper" by any means(arm cores are much weaker for example). and floating point units were able to be shared with sibling core,(i.e. it's strictly better than nonshareable)

Didn't they count fp units with dedicated cache as a "core" but in actuality it was one "module" even though OS vendors counted a "core" as a whole CPU unit with an int+fp+cache as a core until Microsoft caved and redefined it?

each core had int+fp+cache. cache was shared, but again it's strictly better than two separate halves.

[Giovanni Fabbro]

together with legacy hardware? wasn't it like one of linux strengths?

What is said about Linux for hardware is what is said about Microsoft for software.

Backwards compatibility is only a strength in the static enterprise world where innovation and ingenuity are seen as a liability.

[Giovanni Fabbro]

you can't make $50 psu produce correct voltages with good efficiency with any amount of power bars

Not if it's 1500W, you can't. Modest power supplies of 200-300W are enough to power a standard desktop these days. Mini desktops are pretty powerful and run on laptop-like power bricks though, and they don't even cost $50 to replace. Some even have H-series performance chips in them and run on 90-45W.

[pal666]

But stuff like video playback in a browser just works on Windows without needing to mess around with codecs

no, it does not. on windows you start with downloading codecs. on linux it works out of the box

[pal666]

Not if it's 1500W, you can't. Modest power supplies of 200-300W are enough to power a standard desktop these days.

cheapest chinese psu is enough to power desktop. but it will have low efficiency and unstable voltages