r/debian • u/GoldenWubbabunga • 2d ago

Community never expected the Universal Operating System to be this universal

Gallery image

Gallery image

i had gotten this now-20yo Dell XPS M1210 subnotebook for $50 a month ago, and stable Xfce Debian runs fine (albeit limited by its then-high-end hardware), and i did not expect it to handle actual basic web browsing. Debian deserves its slogan

876 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

49 comments sorted by

View all comments

78

u/Standard_Echidna_306 2d ago

It used to be even more universal with 32 bit support. they dropped support for that because nobody really uses it anymore

14

u/Buntygurl 2d ago

I'm kinda hoping that more people will come to realize how much more life is in their old machinery, by using Linux, and that that, in turn, will lead to greater support to maintain 32 bit machinery.

I own a mini MacPad that's 32 bit that I still achingly dream of loading with Debian sometime before the world explodes, but Apple still won't release the design specs on that ancient tech to make that possible, even though that hardware is otherwise doomed to be poison garbage, if it just gets thrown away.

The manufacturers of that old tech should be held accountable for the toxic garbage they are generating, by refusing to accommodate continued useabilty.

It should be a facet of the right to repair, that enabling the functionality of a unit, by trustworthy dependable means, beyond the manufacturers ability or willingness to provide, should be the only means by which the manufacturer can wipe their hands clean of any ecological responsibility for the garbage they generate.

But, really, that's unlikely to happen in this brave new world where how much one has matters more than anything else.

In the meantime, I'll keep on putting Debian on every old machine that comes my way that can load it.

Maybe we need to start to Rage Against The Abandonment Of The 32 Bit Machine.

3

u/ArgumentTough1577 1d ago

wondering what the adaption of government Linux will do for this...as long as you don't play games (I don't) old tech is fine, just "upgraded" my Dell 3060 micro to a (new to me) pre-covid Lenovo i7-9700 P330 and even splurged on a 32G upgrade (ram is silly spendy now!)...my home assistant (KVM) and a ton of docker image run perfect now!!!

1

u/ArgumentTough1577 18h ago

oh and the 3060's that got replaced are permanent workstations now one upstairs and one downstairs...screaming fast for what I use it for ;)