Since it is painfully obvious that RedHat/Rocky/etc have abandoned x86_64_v1 hardware, can someone recommend a distribution that appears to have an interest in continuing support for the billions of dollars of x86_64_v1 hardware still out there? I’m sure I’m not the only ludites out here who for whatever reason are not prepared or able to replace all of our hardware.
You can use Rocky 8 without problems. Either that I would recommend Debian.
I know that I am probably stating the obvious, but this means that x86_64_v1 hardware will have support, via Rocky 8.10, until EOL May 31, 2029 per Rocky Linux Release and Version Guide - Rocky Linux Wiki so basically another four years of usable lifetime.
Tony
I suppose it depends on how you define usable. Updates until 2029, you can still use it after that just without any updates, security fixes, etc. However we’re talking about CPU’s that are pre 2008 which are 17 years old anyway (or even pre 2011 for some CPU’s). By the time Rocky 8 is gone, that’s 21 years old hardware. Not really going to be useful for much.
I currently have a 2013 HP Proliant DL360e that I’m using, but it doesn’t support Rocky 10, therefore I know that Rocky 9 is the last release I’ll use on it, which will take me to 2032. At this point, it’s almost 20 years old and it’s not really great performance wise now either. It’s useful for some lab stuff that I don’t need speed for, but other than that I’ve already contemplated binning it and potentially replace it with something a lot newer.
Yes, me too, until last year, I had a Dell PowerEdge 2650 which had reached its 20th Birthday, and I love the Dell PowerEdge for how the hardware is engineered for long-term reliability.
it’s not that I recommend running hardware across 20 years; @rpyne comment resonated with me that “ludites out here who for whatever reason are not prepared or able to replace all of our hardware.”
Tony
I love the Dell ones too, I had/have a Dell PowerEdge 800 tower around somewhere, only a Pentium 5 if I remember correctly, 8GB of ram, was plenty for me when operating a small business server with VM’s as a mail server, web server, proxy and bacula vm. And yeah I get it not having to buy kit so often because forced to because of the pace everything moves out.
I got a desktop computer that I bought and put together in 2018, which was a top end Intel i5 processor, which I still use for lab stuff since it’s relatively cheap in comparison to full blown servers. That replaced a computer I built in 2008 which was an Intel Core 2 Duo. Both still usable, and I still have it standing next to the one it replaced, I just don’t turn it on or use it. It can do basic stuff probably and that’s about it.
The good thing is, there are other distros we can use on this even older hardware anyway, for example Debian is what I had/have on the older one. Fedora would probably work on it as well.
This thread reminds me of the “reliability engineering” graph named the “Bathtub curve”, Wikipedia has a very good article at Bathtub curve - Wikipedia and which contains the curve at Bathtub curve - Wikipedia
I love purchasing pre-owned hardware, because the original buyer has taken the significant depreciation over the first few years, and, per the curve, at that point in time, the observed failure rate is near its minimum, and entering its long-term period of maximum reliability.
Wear-out old age, which I think for a well-engineered and well-maintained system, can be beyond 15 years, as we both have seen.
Tony