Because Shiny Things Are Fun - The New New Windows v Linux Thread

Originally Posted by dave@burn-it.co.uk I never once complained about dropping support by anyone! Be very very careful what you say on a public forum especially IF that is meant to imply people still using old equipment are stupid.

I'm more worried about wasting time posting replies to people who didn't bother to read the posts I was replying to or my initial replies.
Admitedly not explicitely on this thread but I have posted before agreeing that keeping old hardware and software alive is a good hobby. It is also utterly irrelevant to the discussion regarding M$ and Mozilla dropping support for OSs and architectures and the issues that may cause people doing day-to-day computing.

Support for older operating systems is "sunsetted" because it's too expensive – or, not possible – for software vendors to keep them up-to-date. In several cases in the history of the Windows OS, "deep dive" changes were made to the fundamental architecture of the system, which could not be carried forward and without which security (etc.) could not be achieved. It is not possible to "retrofit" these changes into earlier versions of the system. "XP" is a 32-bit OS and it always will be, and so on.

And then ... there is "Windows 10!"

Originally Posted by rokytnji Many Own Cell Phones, Few Have Landlines

very important point! often ignored by linux forums posters.

Originally Posted by cwizardone Mozilla has said that not only will the next version of Firefox, 53, not run on CPUs older than the Intel P4 or AMD Opteron, it will not run on win-XP or vista. Being the cynic I am, I wonder how much mickeysoft paid mozilla to do that? BTW, if your older CPU supports SSE2, then it can, supposedly, run Firefox-53.

Just to clarify that: Firefox will run fine on older CPUs without SSE2. You just have to compile it yourself or hope that your distro of choice compiles Firefox without the SSE2 flag. All they have removed is support for older CPUs in their pre-compiled binaries.

It is not possible to "retrofit" these changes into earlier versions of the system. "XP" is a 32-bit OS and it always will be, and so on.

Wrong - XP had both 32 and 64 bit verions. It may be true that the very restricted HOME version was 32 bit only, but most people used XP Pro anyway.

XP 64 was for Itanium (IA-64 architecture) not amd64 (x86_64).

XP x86_64 was released much later and as I recall based on Server 2003.

Both are so uncommon, especially to home desktop/laptop PC users, they barely warrant a mention...

It's microcoughed-losedough$ vrs Linux so Xpee (DEAD) is irrelevant in the long... not that I mind some off topic.

Where as "unsupported" Linux is still supported.

Edit: Last edited by jamison20000e; Today at 06:40 AM. Reason: Forgot the quotes for whatever "unsupported" i$‽

Originally Posted by ondoho very important point! often ignored by linux forums posters.

I have a land-line because I have to put my cell phone in the kitchen window (of my farmhouse) to get one bar. There is only one wireless network within reach of my house ... mine.

I told Comcast (Xfinity) to go to hell many years ago. My "land" line, thank you very much, is optical. Courtesy of "the local phone company."

Originally Posted by dave@burn-it.co.uk Wrong - XP had both 32 and 64 bit verions. It may be true that the very restricted HOME version was 32 bit only, but most people used XP Pro anyway.

Ahh. Then I stand corrected!

Microsoft's "home edition" hobble-horses were ... "very strange ... very strange, indeed." I have no idea why they bother.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Ahh. Then I stand corrected! Microsoft's "home edition" hobble-horses were ... "very strange ... very strange, indeed." I have no idea why they bother.

Marketing. It is all about trying to squeeze the maximum amount of money out of the customers by enticing them to "upgrade" from "home" to the "professional" edition.
Wouldn't you prefer to drive a GMC "Professional Grade Truck" rather than a plain old Chevy pickup?

It was, but it was more about collusion between MS and Computer sellers. They had a contract to supply an OS to the makers that would be pre-installed, so they provided a cut down version that was supposed to be simple and left out things like much of the networking services so was cheaper.
In fact it turned out to be harder to support than the "commercial" version PRO and was SO different that people who used XP Pro at work often struggled to switch to the Home version.
I only ever used HOME to support people that used it and even after years of experience, I found it very confusing and difficult to use..

No one can rip off and pirate GNU\Linux, superiority reached!

Originally Posted by SDRGuy Mozilla is just making it more easier to move firefox users to google chrome.

Why not Pale Moon?

I discovered Seamonkey by using Puppy Linux and have it on both my OpenBSD boxen.

I normally use Firefox on everything, mostly for the extensions, but it comes in handy at times having more than one browser.