3 Jun
2013
3 Jun
'13
7:54 p.m.
On Sun, 2 Jun 2013, Liam Proven wrote:
Embrace, extend and extinguish.
I can't help but wonder how many "developers" who are contributing both to
the mainline Linux kernel and userspace are employed by hardware companies
who have a vested interest in selling lots of new kit?
For that fact, how many are Microsofties who wish to harm and displace
Linux (or NetBSD, et al.) in the long term with Windows RT?
<tinfoil hat>
Perhaps this is how they force the masses to move to DRM-enabled hardware
platforms?
</tinfoil hat>
Death by a thousand cuts?
On 2 June 2013 04:27, Tothwolf <tothwolf at
concentric.net> wrote:
It isn't quite what I'm looking for.
I've yet to find a currently
maintained Linux distribution that does what I need and isn't bloated
in userspace. I'm looking more for what a Linux distribution once was
in the late 1990s, with full (advanced) networking support, plus normal
network services, and still have a small userspace footprint (and low
memory usage).
Time moves on. Software develops. This means it grows.
Are there /any/ currently maintained Linux
distributions out there
these days that are geared towards embedded use where they don't
blindly assume multiple GB of memory and drive space?
Not that I am aware of, no.
Surely I'm not the only one looking for
something like this?
Well, no. But there is a general trend, and it is that the hardware is
"rising up" to meet the needs of the modern software. When a 32-bit CPU,
a few gigabytes of Flash storage and a half a gig of RAM gives you a
usable system with Linux 3.x and a normal userspace for a cost of a few
US dollars, why bother doing tons of work to cut it down? The lack of
i386 support with TC isn't very encouraging, either (they
state i486 as a minimum, which is the same as modern Debian, et al.) I
have boxes upon boxes of i386 stuff and I'd hate to at some point have
to create a separately maintained fork of the Linux kernel just to keep
them supported (everything from Intel 80386SX-16 to AMD 386DX-40, with
and without FPUs). The idea of using either an obsolete (and likely
unmaintained) Linux kernel or MS-DOS on them isn't terribly appealing.
You do realise that kernel 3.8 explicitly dropped support for 80386?
It's now 80486 or above.