Where do Old Computers go to Die?
This is something I have though about a number of times, but not written anything about before. Someone mentioned that their still perfectly good machine won't be able to run the next release of a certain OS, which got me to thinking I should write something up.
Now, we can't expect every computer to physically last forever, and above that, we can't expect that every computer will be at full usefulness for its entire working lifetime. Even if it works fine, it's unreasonable to expect an old machine to support every new development. There will be design constraints with every generation of hardware, and the reality is that software can only get you so far.
A little example: I have a a Powermac desktop from 2003. The thing works great, but it shipped with Mac OS 9. Mac OS 9 isn't even close to being supported anymore. They didn't just upgrade it, they completely changed the OS after that - OS 9 is an evolutionary dead-end. Fine, some versions of Mac OS X will run on it, but none of the recent ones. So if I put OS 9 on it, there will be no new programs, and it will have all of the problems of OS 9. If I put OX X on it, I will be stuck running and old version of OS X on it, for little good reason. An old version of OS X that worked fine might be great, but there are other problems. Security fixes are no longer distributed, by Apple, etc.
One of the great things about Unix is that it supports multiple processor types with ease, and Apple could easily continue to support powerpc if they wanted to. So what did I do? Well, I put Linux on it. Even though the vast majority of Linux users are using commodity PCs with Intel chipsets, PowerPC is supported just fine on the latest kernels. I can also run the newest releases of most any distribution. What's more, if I want to stick with an older release, Debian and several other distributions back-port the latest fixes to those as well.
Microsoft and Apple need to realize that old PCs don't evaporate after 3 years, or even 10. Many go on working just fine, but become useless because of lack of proper software support. There's just no real justifiable reason for this, and it results in a lot of land-fill volume I am sure.
If a new version of an OS comes out with new features, perhaps some of them can't be expected to run on the older hardware, but it's not so tough to make those features optional. For example, OS X 10.6 should be able to run on my old PowerMac, but some things might not physically be able to work. Other things, perhaps, it would be best to turn off in order to conserve limited resources. Not supporting the new OSs on older hardware at all, in combination with not updating the old ones leads to serious problems. (Including that people with old machines running older versions of the OS will be around for many years, and their un-patched security holes will become problems for everyone. Also, old web browsers used by those people means that web sites can't upgrade their services).
Now, we can't expect every computer to physically last forever, and above that, we can't expect that every computer will be at full usefulness for its entire working lifetime. Even if it works fine, it's unreasonable to expect an old machine to support every new development. There will be design constraints with every generation of hardware, and the reality is that software can only get you so far.
A little example: I have a a Powermac desktop from 2003. The thing works great, but it shipped with Mac OS 9. Mac OS 9 isn't even close to being supported anymore. They didn't just upgrade it, they completely changed the OS after that - OS 9 is an evolutionary dead-end. Fine, some versions of Mac OS X will run on it, but none of the recent ones. So if I put OS 9 on it, there will be no new programs, and it will have all of the problems of OS 9. If I put OX X on it, I will be stuck running and old version of OS X on it, for little good reason. An old version of OS X that worked fine might be great, but there are other problems. Security fixes are no longer distributed, by Apple, etc.
One of the great things about Unix is that it supports multiple processor types with ease, and Apple could easily continue to support powerpc if they wanted to. So what did I do? Well, I put Linux on it. Even though the vast majority of Linux users are using commodity PCs with Intel chipsets, PowerPC is supported just fine on the latest kernels. I can also run the newest releases of most any distribution. What's more, if I want to stick with an older release, Debian and several other distributions back-port the latest fixes to those as well.
Microsoft and Apple need to realize that old PCs don't evaporate after 3 years, or even 10. Many go on working just fine, but become useless because of lack of proper software support. There's just no real justifiable reason for this, and it results in a lot of land-fill volume I am sure.
If a new version of an OS comes out with new features, perhaps some of them can't be expected to run on the older hardware, but it's not so tough to make those features optional. For example, OS X 10.6 should be able to run on my old PowerMac, but some things might not physically be able to work. Other things, perhaps, it would be best to turn off in order to conserve limited resources. Not supporting the new OSs on older hardware at all, in combination with not updating the old ones leads to serious problems. (Including that people with old machines running older versions of the OS will be around for many years, and their un-patched security holes will become problems for everyone. Also, old web browsers used by those people means that web sites can't upgrade their services).
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