Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday November 10 2016, @11:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the one-fewer-architecture dept.

Softpedia reports

The exact release date of the Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" distribution has not yet been announced, but we're now fully aware of the supported hardware architectures, which include 64-bit (amd64), 32-bit (i386), AArch64 (ARM64), MIPS, MIPS 64-bit Little Endian (mips64el), Armel, ARMhf, IMB System z (s390x), MIPS Little Endian (MIPSel), and PowerPC 64-bit Little Endian (ppc64el).

[...] The Debian Project [has] decided that it's time to deprecate the support for the PowerPC (PPC) hardware architecture from the Debian GNU/Linux operating system, starting with the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" release. Also in question is if the PPC (PowerPC) port will remain an architecture in the main FTP archive of the GNU/Linux distribution.

That being said, if you're currently using Debian on a PowerPC computer, you should be aware of the fact that you won't be able to upgrade to Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" when it's officially released. However, that should not be an issue because the Debian GNU/Linux 8 "Jessie" release should receive support for at least a couple of years.

Will this affect any Soylentils?
Are there Soylentils running a PowerPC who have already abandoned Debian because of other issues?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @12:45AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @12:45AM (#425485)

    There are only so many resources for the mainstream projects, and supporting platforms that are way out of date becomes too costly for the return they get. As frustrating as it might be for some of us hanging on to what honestly should be retired, realistically it has to end eventually.

    But that said, If you want *nix to be supported on obsolete hardware, there is a choice. NetBSD made it their mandate.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @01:08AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @01:08AM (#425499)

    Including PC/ISA, NetBSD is still half baked compared to the Linux kernel (if not distros) at the hardware level. That said, for arches with static hardware configuration and only proprietary OSes as an option it is an excellent alternative for many systems, although not as many as it used to due to bloat, same as debian.

    Personally I have moved to Devuan for x86/64 and gentoo for everything else. If you can get a netboot or cd image going with gentoo, you can usually bootstrap everything else. And unlike the alternatives they support armv4-aarch64, powerpc, sparc, have provisions for supporting other kernels/oses (including windows, hurd, and kfreebsd.) and allow reasonably fine grained package option control (it can depend heavily on the particular ebuild maintainer.)

    That said: who uses Debian anymore? They've been abandoning their core mandate for years now, and weren't in a leadership position in the linux world before that (hell if it wasn't for ubuntu debian would've been a has-been OS years before.)

  • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday November 11 2016, @01:12AM

    by Unixnut (5779) on Friday November 11 2016, @01:12AM (#425501)

    Yeah I have to admit, I have Debian 7 running away on a PowerPC Mac mini (G4). It was upgraded to 1GB RAM from 256MB, and had the CPU speed upped to the max (1.6Ghz?) around 2011.

    To be fair, it has worked really well all this time, apart from its hard disk dying a few months ago necessitating a reinstall, it has been bullet proof since I got it. I think it has been used as a server now since 2008 or 2009, non stop. This is one of the "old Apples", where Jobs made sure it was built to a very high standard. I am always impressed when I disassemble it for a service.

    Would be a shame if Debian dropped support for it, it is really nice to have not only a decent OS for it, but all the apps pre-compiled and working with no hassle.

    If they did drop support, and Devuan didn't pick it up, I guess I will either have to run the old versions, or switch to another OS. However I think there is a few years yet before this becomes too much a concern.

    I don't know, I guess I just follow the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra, and the mac mini seems well suited to its current role.