With Approaching Another Year Closer To Year 2038, Linux 5.5 Brings More Y2038 Fixes

[CommunityMember]

Do we expect by 2038 most embedded systems to still be 32 bit?

It is not at all unusual that embedded/instrumentation devices and/or their OS are used for many decades (if you look hard enough you can probably find some system in some back corner of some industrial plant running Banyan VINES). And while some companies may have explicit life cycle replacement processes, for others it can be hard to justify replacing some PLC in some back room that just monitors the water pressure to the loo even if you remember it is there (and there are a lot of such embedded devices that people forget about). Will all of them be impacted? Perhaps not. But some will likely fall over in strange ways.

[S.Pam]

Do we expect by 2038 most embedded systems to still be 32 bit? And who will fix the Year 403207347832 issue?

Highly likely. At work (automotive industry) our machines have a life time of 15 years. Y2038 is actually really close since we need to start thinking on how we buy machines today...

[schmidtbag]

Hope you have enough cocoa stored, it's only the 19th it will happen. And 19 days inside without fresh air is bad for your constitution

Ah, well, I guess I'll stay in on the 19th then lol.

[DL9220]

I'm just going to stay indoors on New Years Day of 2038, as people run around in terror, make stupid life decisions, and start looting stores. I, meanwhile, will sit comfortably on my couch with a hot cocoa watching the news, witnessing only the stupid people and technological troglodytes getting themselves killed, arrested, or bankrupt. 2038 will be a good year for most people.

Hope you have enough cocoa stored, it's only the 19th it will happen. And 19 days inside without fresh air is bad for your constitution

[schmidtbag]

I'm just going to stay indoors on New Years Day of 2038, as people run around in terror, make stupid life decisions, and start looting stores. I, meanwhile, will sit comfortably on my couch with a hot cocoa watching the news, witnessing only the stupid people and technological troglodytes getting themselves killed, arrested, or bankrupt. 2038 will be a good year for most people.

[ntropy]

The Y2K panic back then was really fun. I remember prophecies about the apocalypse and the World's end, tho in retrospect we used way less computer than nowadays. Regarding 2038 I hope we will only be emulating 32- and 64-bit on retro gaming consoles, by then running 1024x2 - qubit processors

[Britoid]

Do we expect by 2038 most embedded systems to still be 32 bit? And who will fix the Year 403207347832 issue?

Yes and software that even if it's running on 64bit is still storing times as 32bit.

We'll be dead long before 403207347832.

[cl333r]

2038 is a bigger deal because there's more computers and embedded systems with more things relying on those systems.

Do we expect by 2038 most embedded systems to still be 32 bit? And who will fix the Year 403207347832 issue?

[Britoid]

This reminds me of the whole Y2K scare, all the doom and gloom and warnings of dire consequences, nothing happened, a few systems displayed the wrong date. Big deal.

2038 is a bigger deal because there's more computers and embedded systems with more things relying on those systems. Y2K was more a logic and display issue where as 2038 is a hardware limitation.

[Spooktra]

This reminds me of the whole Y2K scare, all the doom and gloom and warnings of dire consequences, nothing happened, a few systems displayed the wrong date. Big deal.