On Tue, May 30 2023, Steve Langasek wrote: > For businesses, the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit was several > depreciation cycles ago. > > In my city, there is a non-profit that accepts donations of old computers, > refurbishes them, installs Linux, and both sells them and provides them free > to people in need. > > They receive x86-64 systems that they determine are *too old to be worth > refurbishing* and they e-cycle them. > > Hanging on to systems using power-hungry chips from 20 years ago instead of > intercepting a system such as this is not reducing the number of computers > that end up in the waste stream, it just keeps you stuck with a more > power-hungry system.
I still have several Asus EeePCs (Atom N270 which had a TDP of 2.5W) from around 2008ish. One of them is in active use as an amateur radio digipeater, while the others see occasional use. These don't support a 64-bit instruction set but are perfectly servicable for certain use cases. I understand that a 9" screen and an Atom isn't going to be suitable for the segment of the population that wants to use it for modern web browsing and video calling, so I understand why your nonprofit is doing that. I wouldn't buy a used EeePC today. Still, I see no reason to contribute to the waste and carbon stream by replacing these perfectly usable machines with something newer. Capability-wise, they are roughly similar to a Raspberry Pi, but they have the added benefit of a screen, keyboard, and battery all integrated in a small device. Not everything from that age was power-hungry. I guess the question is: is this use case too niche for Debian to continue supporting? I would suggest that as long as we have 32-bit ARM, are the challenges for 32-bit x86 really worse? - John
