@Big PUP and @Amigo are echoing the message: New OS for new hardware.
This is one of the same things I have supported, even in Puppy Linux. In the 2005 era, Puppy Linux "solved" operations of 386s, 486s, and 586s and the peripherals of that day. In later years PUPs, they solved 686 and 64bit with past peripherals. Now that the manufacturing community of x86 no longer build 32bit PCs, the effort to build OSes and distros for them will diminish over time just as it has for 286s/386s/486s.
In 2014 AND 2015 more and more of PUP distro developers are indicating the "
Target PCs-RAM" they prep their distro for. I support their views as a positive indicator for user awareness! They are NOT restricting the use of their distro, rather, they are sharing how they envision their distros to operate.
As Puppy has "solved" the build, tests, release and maintenance of old distros designed for old hardware, I never saw a need to redesign new distros for old hardware as well as new hardware. The old distros with its functionality just works and works well on the hardware it was designed for.
If a new distro designed to address new hardware thru its kernel use AND the distro developer shares what he expects, I fully agree with this, as the developer is indicating what hardware he is willing to support the use of his distro on. Their is NOT enough hours in the day for a developer to support each and every PC ever built for the distro(s) they present. Support for anything they design for takes time. Trying to support for things the distro was never intended for adds to the time. And it is for this reason, that I find any developer's statement of what PC design he envisions as a base-level for his contribution as a requirement in understanding and operating to support them. Thus, this is an important statement coming from the developer to any user.
I did understand what Microsoft intends. And, whether I agree or not, or like them or not, I must respect the fact that they are telling us what their distro is designed to operate on and what they do not and will not develop for. They have, in my view, already addressed old hardware at each level of their releases thru the years. And they are up-front about it in statements released with their OSes. This does NOT mean it wont work, it just means that they didn't design for it, whether it works or not.
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