> where I can still run recent versions of Linux on devices 10-20 years old.
10 sure, but not 20. 20 years ago the devices had 32 bit CPUs, the support for them is being phased out. The last 32-bit Ubuntu LTS is 16.04.6, from 2016.
Ubuntu 16.04 is still receiving updates - unlike typical Android phones from the same era.
While you might not get the latest kernel with it, as far as I can tell, there is nothing in its package manager that doesn't run on hardware from 2016.
Unkike typical Android devices from the same era.
> as I can tell, there is nothing in its package manager that doesn't run on hardware from 2016.
Right, but 20 years ago was 1999. I won’t be surprised to find out many packages won’t work: that CPU doesn’t have SSE2, the RAM limit is 512 MB, and typical systems usually had 64 or 128 MB.
The official page says recommended minimum requirements for Ubuntu 16.04 are 2 GHz dual core processor with 2GB RAM. 20 years old PCs don’t fit.
I wonder about the level of VAX support. Do they just have old code lying in the repository, do they build it, or do the devs actually have a working VAX machine and they test new builds?
Not a dev, but as i understand it as a Vaxstation 4000 owner who boots up from time to time to enjoy the beeps:
a) build.sh allows cross compilation, which helps with build validation
(although openbsd built native until they dropped vax ~3y ago)
b) there are a few dedicated devs on vax. these pretty much do the work as a hobby,
and things are best effort, but generally in sync with the rest of the tree. most
of these own a vax or three, but you can also run on SimH and probably other
vax emulators.
c) really, the system source is modular enough that adjusting device drivers for well
documented hardware which has existed for years, and tweaking a few
already-implemented since the 80s macro primitives is most of what is needed to
keep things running -most of the adjustments to the system itself happen higher
up the stack (e.g in the generic c portion of the kernel, or in the c library).
Granted, this does mean knowing the ISA and HW in and out, and having skills to
debug/reason about low-level instruction/hardware sorts of issues, but, hey,
that's who codes open source os'es anyway.. Besides, if you are a true VAX BSD UNIX hacker,
you've been tweaking your kernel sources since you manually toggled in the 3BSD bootstrap
in 1979 :b
10 sure, but not 20. 20 years ago the devices had 32 bit CPUs, the support for them is being phased out. The last 32-bit Ubuntu LTS is 16.04.6, from 2016.