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Arch Linux Ends i686 Package Support Today

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Anvil View Post
    now if only Microsoft stop supporting old 32bit technology aswell . people have had long enough time to get a cheap 64bit PC .
    A "long time" is an understatement. x86-64 CPUs have been around for over 15 years. However, I don't think MS was ever actually the problem here, but they just happened to be the punching bag due to being at the top of the software totem pole.
    The real problem causers were Intel, OEM brands l(ike Dell and HP), and companies that developed software that people depended on (like Adobe). Intel's P4 was one of their most successful product lines ever made and it took way too long for P4s to get phased out. Seriously, the last P4 produced was 2008. When you consider Intel's popularity and how long people keep PCs, that became a lot of 32bit-only CPUs out in the wild. Intel also created a few Atom CPUs that were 32bit-only.
    As for the OEMs, despite having access to architectures like Core2 or Athlon 64, they kept shipping 32-bit versions of Windows. I haven't really looked that hard but I'm sure there are PCs being sold with 32-bit Windows 10.
    Then, there are companies like Adobe. Programs like Flash were almost a necessity for all of the 2000s and early 2010s, but they only came in 32-bit.

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    • #32
      Originally posted by M@GOid View Post
      I remember a conversation if a colleague at work, a couple years ago, she asked me to take a look at her netbook, it was slow and she thought it might have some virus. Turnout the poor Atom (a early model) cannot surf the modern web effortlessly anymore, and opening her Yahoo mail was a exercise of patience.

      It come a time we should let old things go, even if they still work fine.
      I've a spft spot in my heart for those little things. Anyways I and willing to bet the main limitation was the RAM. Browsers and web pages are just plain bloated. If she had a local client connecting via imap or pop, it would have worked quite a bit better. It's soo pathatic that the web client is the number one resource hog on the average person's rig. Old browser with just plain HTML support use less than 16MB of RAM. Come on guys, let's make the web great again.

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      • #33
        Originally posted by WorBlux View Post

        I've a spft spot in my heart for those little things. Anyways I and willing to bet the main limitation was the RAM. Browsers and web pages are just plain bloated. If she had a local client connecting via imap or pop, it would have worked quite a bit better. It's soo pathatic that the web client is the number one resource hog on the average person's rig. Old browser with just plain HTML support use less than 16MB of RAM. Come on guys, let's make the web great again.
        Install Thunderbird was my suggestion to her. The Yahoo Mail web interface is criminally slow, even in my much more powerful (compared to that Atom) i5 3320m (on a Thinkpad T430) .

        And I agree with you, the "Web 2.0" is the principal enemy of old computers, that otherwise can run a OS, office suite and a bunch of other software just fine.

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        • #34
          Originally posted by WorBlux View Post

          I've a spft spot in my heart for those little things. Anyways I and willing to bet the main limitation was the RAM (...)
          This is a major reason to use 32bit linux. Got some Athlon 64 w/ 1GB ddr1? Laptop w/ 1GB ddr2, etc. The CPU still flies but 64bit is a waste of RAM.

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          • #35
            Originally posted by grok View Post
            This is a major reason to use 32bit linux. Got some Athlon 64 w/ 1GB ddr1? Laptop w/ 1GB ddr2, etc. The CPU still flies but 64bit is a waste of RAM.
            Especially with multi-lib.

            If you don't need third-party binary comaptibility or more than 4GB of memory per thread, the x32 ABI is a pretty good choice, letting you use a lot more of the processor features by default.

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            • #36
              Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
              As an Arch user, I also approve of this. For a cutting-edge rolling-release distro, it's oddly stable. Removing i686 ought to help further improve that stability, and, maybe even result in updates to be released faster.
              I totally agree on the stability front. whenever I get a new machine, I install Archlinux and it just rolls along.... it's not like years ago, where a lot of updates required user intervention or unexpected breakage.... things have really smoothed out...

              I can't imagine using any other distro and particularily; not a non-rolling release.

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