Hi, consumerism has got an upside and a downside.
Your subject is misleading, since you question the support of aged CPUs. Your point of view takes only your field of application into account and apart from this you ignore the progress computers already made before the microchips mentioned by you were available. I for example still own a 80286. From which date on should support end? Probably the 80286 was never supported by the Linux kernel. Is Linux the measure of all things? The Commodore 64 I used around 30 years ago was in the same price range as my new iPad Pro 3rd generation today. The C64 was used as a MIDI sequencer with a click thingy to sync to a tape recorder (years later it was replaced by an Atari ST with SMPTE to sync to a tape recorder). In addition I needed a studio full of expensive synth and effect gear that was way more expensive than those computers. For the iPad I only need a cheap pro-sumer audio interface and to purchase a few proprietary apps in a price range of what was needed just to get one synthesizer around 30 years ago. You indeed could get a second hand PC and free as in beer Linux audio applications, but you cannot replace the aged synthesizers and the old effect gear completely with a Linux machine, because the virtual free as in beer synthesizers and effects do not nearly sound as good as the old studio gear does. If you pay software for the relatively expensive iPad, you can replace almost all of the old gear. A lot of hardware and software development happened and still happens because it's coupled with consumerism. While software development for free as in beer is possible to some degree, CPU development and fabrication has got a price. I'm neither unconditionally pro consumerism, nor naive against it. Who should pay the people for supporting a microchip bought 10 years ago in the price range of what we pay to get the food we need in just one week? Should they also continue to develop newer CPUs? Who should pay for the development, if we continue using old machines? I dislike, if people buy a new computer each year. I tend to use my PCs for around 10 years, if possible, often the PCs already fail before they are 10 years old. Some of us are able to repair broken computer gear, but often it doesn't pay to repair old computers. For the majority of people who need to pay a repair shop, it's cheaper to get a new PC from the discounter, by the way, with the latest release of Windows pre-installed. Regards, Ralf -- Lubuntu-users mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/lubuntu-users
