Dropping i386 non-PAE as a supported kernel flavour in Precise Pangolin

[Martin Pool]

On 11 November 2011 23:18, John Arbash Meinel <john at arbash-meinel.com> wrote:
> ...
>
>>> Computers are replaced as frequently as refrigerators by people who don't
>>> care how quickly it loads a page or makes ice: when it stops turning on.
>>
>> Those people are probably not upgrading their refrigerator firmware
>> all that often either.  They may not want a major new OS release.
>> They might install an update/backport of a particular app.
>>
>> There is a group of people who want the latest-and-greatest software
>> on old or small hardware, but they're necessarily the crowd you're
>> describing here.
>
> I think you mean 'not necessarily'.

Yes, it was just a typo.

>  I agree, though I know we dealt with a
> lot of this in our 'bzr python-compatibility' discussions. In that
> particular case it was "we don't want to upgrade the OS, or even the system
> libraries/python version, but we do want to upgrade a given application".
> Which is a different level than "we don't want to upgrade our hardware, but
> we do want to upgrade all of the OS and applications."
>
> Certainly it is a bit different when one upgrade is $$ and the other is
> free.
>
> Still, it seems an open question for how to handle users that want the
> latest-and-greatest X, but don't want the latest-and-greatest Y, even though
> X depends on Y.

Right, that's why I think many of those people are better served by
updating whatever particular apps they care about.  That's why we
provide current-stable and current-beta bzr ppas going back to quite
old OS releases: telling them to upgrade the whole thing won't fly.

Few of those apps are are not going to need or even notice a newer kernel.

Upgrading the kernel and X on old hardware that's already running a
supported OS release is generally a risk with little reward.

m