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posted by
janrinok
on Sunday February 05 2017, @07:31PM
from the diminished-user-base-on-old-boxes dept.
from the diminished-user-base-on-old-boxes dept.
The privacy-centric TAILS Linux distro (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) announces:
Tails 3.0 will require a 64-bit x86-64 compatible processor. As opposed to older versions of Tails, it will not work on 32-bit processors.
We have waited for years until we felt it was the right time to do this switch. Still, this was a hard decision for us to make.
[...] Our current goal is to release Tails 3.0, and stop supporting computers with a 32-bit processor, on June 13, 2017.
Announced February 1: Tails 2.10 is out.
The site's news page (which could REALLY use #FragmentIdentifiers MUCH more effectively) says:
Tails 2.11 is scheduled for March 3rd.
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TAILS 3.0 Will Require a 64-Bit Processor
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 05 2017, @08:42PM
For the most part, a computer is a computer; if you need to compute something, it should be possible on any machine, given enough time, and storage, etc.
So... why must 32-bit support be dropped—why is is necessary to drop support for was hitherto been the most ubiquitous form of computing? Well, the only reasonable answer is that the TAILS project is poorly designed; that's it.
It should be perfectly reasonable for someone with a 32-bit machine at least to be able to throw a switch to compile a working version of TAILS for himself; if that's not possible, the only reasonable explanation is that the TAILS project is poorly designed.
If you cannot even trust that such basic, generic engineering has been handled, then how can you possible trust that TAILS is doing what it's supposed to be doing???
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday February 05 2017, @08:50PM
TAILS is an OS with a bunch of bundled software, and much of that bundled software is likely moving to 64-bit only. Do you want the TAILS developers to maintain their own forks of Firefox, Tor, I2P, etc.?
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 05 2017, @09:14PM
That's what this means; it's as simple as that. The world is run on very poorly designed software. Period. Full Stop.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 05 2017, @11:39PM
even if the source code is 32/64-bit clean, you have to test the built product. If nothing else there could be code generation bugs in the compiler. I've actually seen these in my work.
It's a lot of labor to test a product as large and complex as TAILS. It's reasonable that they want to focus their effort where it is the most effective.
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(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Monday February 06 2017, @12:20AM
So, do you have any experience at all with writing and maintaining an OS, as opposed to, say, an end-of-term project for your sophomore year?
Didn't think so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @02:11AM
Thanks for asking.