[Rule-list] About RH 8 not supporting 486

[Colin Mattoon]

On Tue, 22 Oct 2002 21:28:37 -0700 (PDT)
Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:<and I snipped>


>...On the other hand, these older machine are free for
> the taking & offer an inexpensive way to learn thru destructive
> experimentation, so by this measure RULE is still of some value...
> 

Please understand, I'm not suggesting otherwise. My concern has been
that Red Hat is setting the stage to begin building ALL their packages
so that they will not install and run on the i386, i486, and i586
platforms -- even if an alternative, low memory, installation
utility remains possible.

Now, let's assume for the sake of discussion that this is not simply
paranoia on my part...if this happens, the Rule-Project will have
developed an installer that no longer installs anything, because the
distribution it is intended to install will not run anyway. I don't
think this is a delusional conspiracy theory because there are some
potential marketing benefits to Red Hat and few obstacles in their
path. Its not that different than what Mandrake did three years ago.


That's why I suggested the Rule-Project switch it's purpose from
making Red Hat installable on lower tier hardware to making another
existing distribution easier to install and configure and improving
its RPM support. Debian was suggested, although I personally believe
Slackware has even greater potential in this area. Both remain easily
installable on low tier hardware. 

The purpose behind improving RPM support on a non-RPM based
distribution is NOT to continue to ensure that official Red Hat
packages will install. Red Hat dropped installation support for older
processors and it is likely all their binaries will follow suit. Other
distributions already have non-RPM packages that fulfill the role of
Red Hat's base packages, so that's not a problem.

Third party developers ARE a problem, and the reason RPM compatibility
remains important even if Red Hat itself becomes unuseable. There are
many applications available only in RPM binary and source versions.
".deb" and Slackware ".tgz" versions are more rarely offered by
proprietary software vendors.  Even if Red Hat's default policy shifts
to i686 across the board, third party developers are more likely to
respond to requests that they continue to build RPMs for i386. In many
way, it makes their life easier. 

Later,
Colin Mattoon


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