Windows 11 24H2 goes from "unsupported" to "unbootable" on some older PCs | Hacker News Reader

Windows 11 24H2 goes from "unsupported" to "unbootable" on some older PCs

arstechnica.com

31 pointsAdmiralAsshat15 comments

This is such a nothing-burger.

You shouldn't be using a < 2007 PC with Windows 11, for a variety of reasons varying from performance to driver support.

And frankly, I cannot imagine there are many cases where this is happening. Old PCs? Sure. Plenty of those. But those are still running XP or 7.

But those are still running XP or 7.

Win 7 : "Peak Windows"

Win XP: "Second best Windows"

It's been all downhill since 7.

2000: Peak Windows

XP: Win2K, but with Fisher Price interface and online activation

Vista: never used it, but most people seem to agree it's terrible

7: better than Vista, or PCs just got faster in the meantime? Still doesn't feel as good as older versions

8+: mobile-first, war on general purpose computing, telemetry, forced updates, ads in the Start Menu etc.

I'll go one further, Win NT5 beta 2 was better than 2000

Still have this CD

Agreed, title made me think they nuked all unsupported CPUs completely.

Imagine if XP was expected to run (poorly) on systems from 1984 or 7 on systems from 1992. I think of the latter I remember someone getting it to run on a Pentium II 266 so about ~10 years prior to release, don't think you could push it any earlier out of the box due to compatibility.

Last time I tried to install Rocky/Alma Linux on my mum's laptop (Core 2 Duo T5600) it miserably failed because the OS required x86_64_v2 (I didn't even know this existed: I thought all x86_84 linux OS would boot on that machine...). It's a pity since the long-term support of that distro would make it a perfect match for that use-case where I want the computer to "just work" without any bleeding-edge stuff... Anyway, it's just to say that it's not only Microsoft who is dropping support for older machines !

Debian

> It's a pity since the long-term support of that distro would make it a perfect match for that use-case where I want the computer to "just work" without any bleeding-edge stuff

I don't see what your point is... the switch to x86-64-v2 was made in RHEL 9, released on 2022-05-17. But RHEL 8 based distros are supported until 2029. Plenty of time before this switch is something you absolutely have to do.

Also, RHEL is almost exclusively used on servers and high-end workstations, which are never using hardware older than x86-64-v2. CPUs made before 2009 are almost never used in datacenters, except servers that are sentimental (like hobbyist colocation in a university datacenter)

See https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2021/01/05/building-red-h...

Why not go with a more established distro that is well known to work on old machines? I have a 15 year old laptop running Debian and after switching the disk for an SSD it's even comfortable to work with by today's standards. Just stay away from graphics-heavy desktops and applications.

> it miserably failed because the OS required x86_64_v2 (I didn't even know this existed: I thought all x86_84 linux OS would boot on that machine...).

As the sibling comment mentioned, this decision was made for RHEL 9, so distributions based on the older RHEL 8 would still work for you. But that's not the first time it has happened: saying "all x86_84 linux" hides the fact that, for many distributions, x86_64 is all that's available on the x86 world; RHEL 6 was the last RHEL which could run on a 32-bit-only x86 PC. And even earlier than that, we had distributions that started requiring a Pentium or Pentium Pro or equivalent.

This ratcheting of CPU requirements happens for every Linux distribution; some are earlier (as you noticed, the RHEL world is on the leading edge of that), and some are later (Debian still has support for as far back as the Pentium Pro), but you cannot expect to keep using an old CPU on mainstream Linux distributions forever (or even on recent Linux at all; the latest Linux kernel no longer works on a 386 or 486 CPU).

Yes, everybody moves on

Even for old farts that are "x86, 32b distribution", they are mostly i686. As far as I know, no mainstream OS support i386. The Linux kernel dropped its support years ago.

>As far as I know, no mainstream OS support i386.

Including NetBSD? Granted, it's not Linux; but they're supposed to be famous for supporting weird old hardware.

Does netbsd even count as 'mainstream'? I'd hum and haw about freebsd even.

I do not know

According to this (https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/):

  Any i486 or better CPU should work - genuine Intel or a compatible such as Cyrix, AMD, or NexGen.

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