On 03/27/2013 09:35 AM, Alexey G. Khramkov wrote:
Please, don't do this.
I've jumped from OpenBSD to NetBSD boat when SCSI driver were rewritten to the "new" version (between 3.1-stable and 3.2-stable), and my "very branded" HP NetServer with AIC-7770 (which can work on IRQ 14 when primary IDE channel is disabled or IRQ 15 when IDE channel is enabled, no other IRQs are possible) ceased to work. For now, my old Acer netbook with AMD Turion processor is "too old" for NetBSD (my touchpad doesn't work "out of the box"). That's why I'm reading this mail list. Just FYI.
I've got to join my voice with Alexey here. A good part of my work is resurrecting and keeping old specialized industrial equipment going. This is the world where 8" floppies are not uncommon and I get requests to retrieve data from old DC300XL QIC carts. Since the controller (and any interface cards) are part of what makes the equipment go, it just isn't a matter of getting a new commodity box and installing new software. If you have a quarter-million invested in a specialized tool, it pays to keep it going as long as possible.
My point (and I think, Alexey's) is that not everyone uses BSD for browsing the web and exchanging email. There are still some applications out there that are still running on the same equipment from 20 years ago. I find that NetBSD's "Of course it runs NetBSD" slogan rings a little hollow these days.
Perhaps expecting software to run on both new and old gear isn't practical. If that's the case, I'll continue to hang onto my old copies of distros, the same way that I hang onto copies of MS-DOS, Windows 3.1 and Windows 98.
All the best, Chuck Guzis Eugene, OR
