[arch-general] [Fwd: [arch-announce] Dropping i686 support]

kludge drkludge at rat-patrol.org
Wed Apr 1 15:35:34 EDT 2009


>> Yeah, you better do.
>>
>> It's about time the obsolete i686 branch vanished. Everyone who's
>> still wanting it must be a weenie, and there's no place for those
>> in the Arch philosophy -- go try Redhat or something.
>>
>> My 2 cents.
>>
>> Leslie
>>
>> --
>> LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/polzer
>> Xing Profile: https://www.xing.com/profile/LeslieP_Polzer
>> Blog: http://blog.viridian-project.de/
>>
>>
> Please think of poor countries and people living there. Are they all
> weenies?
> 
> 
> 

leslie:  fuck you and your macho-nerd, myth-of-progress bullshit.

all the rest:  i'm really upset with this decision.  the basic
assumption that anyone who matters is spending money on new hardware is
fucked-up.

i love my computer, and i love archlinux.  having made the rounds from
debian to ubuntu to lfs to gentoo, arch offers the perfect balance of
customizeability, low-level control, and binary-package convenience.

but several years ago, i made the conscious and principled choice to
*not* buy new hardware.  i don't want to start an argument about it,
just state that the costs to me and the world (economic and
environmental) of running the latest-model rat race is not worth it.

so a distro that let's me keep my system this stream-lined is perfect.
my main box is a thinkpad a21m (p3 800 mhz, 512 mb ram, nine years old)
and it does everything i need it to do because it doesn't do anything i
don't want it to do.  and that's thanks to arch.  i *know* i'm not the
only one who values arch *specifically* because its simplicity and
felixibility prove that old does not mean obsolete.

so, sure i could go abs and compile everything, but the reason i quit
gentoo and lfs is that neither i nor my computer have the available
cycles for that.

i've been running linux exclusively for the last seven years, and arch
is the first distro i've used that i've felt any real love or loyalty
for.  it's the first distro, with its attendant community, that's
inspired me to kick back and contribute.  it's taught me an enormous
amount, and much of what i've learned i've learned specifically so i can
 contribute back to the community.

it's distressing that a change this monumental happened apparently
without any consultation with the community-at-large.  maybe it ain't a
rational response, but i feel a bit betrayed.

i haven't got the technical expertise or time to make spear-head it, but
i would definitely throw down on maintaining i686 packages in a
community-managed repo.  are there other archers out there who don't
feel like (or can't) buy new hardware just because the developers claim
we're obsolete?  let's organize.

-kludge


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