Full Circle Magazine FR

Back on June 29, 2016, Joey Sneddon wrote an article entitled Ubuntu To Drop 32-bit Desktop and Server Installers for OMG! Ubuntu discussing the merits of the Ubuntu team dropping 32-bit support in future releases of Ubuntu. Echos of this sentiment were mirrored in the Xubuntu mailing list as well as several other distributions (Fedora, Arch, OpenSUSE). Much of the talk was around the amount of extra effort it requires to support these dated platforms. From the perspective of a not-for-profit computer refurbisher, I had mixed feelings about this news. Flush with systems, our project decided last year to stop building 32-bit desktop systems (but we continue to support people running 32-bit systems for repairs). Laptops however were a different story, we still see many Pentium M and Pentium 4 class machines simply because we don’t have the same kind of volume of Core 2 or better laptops as we do desktops. With laptops so much more in demand, it’s difficult for us to just relegate useful notebooks to the recycling bin. Part of our decision around desktops was spurred on by the fact that Pentium 4 machines tend to have quite a bit of difficulty displaying 1080p video. And although most people tend to use portable systems for watching video, there’s still a market for people who just need a simple web browser and office suite to “write their book” or contact their friends on social media. It’s hard to see 32-bit support being dropped because we tend to value reuse over recycling. We often see hardware (there’s a flatbed scanner on our shelf for example) that’s unsupported by modern versions of Windows but still is supported under modern versions of Linux. Linux has often had a reputation for running on just about everything, and yet here we are discussing the death of Linux on a fairly large platform.

Yet there is something to be said for moving on. 64-bit DEC Alpha’s were introduced back in 1992 - 25 years ago. On the desktop side of things, the first Athlon 64 was released back in late 2003 - almost 14 years ago. 64-bit has been with us a long time. We also have to consider the recent popularity of 64-bit single board computers (SBC). Like it or not, SBCs are changing the landscape. SBCs may not be able to encode a video like a hopped up i7 with a GTX1080, but they’re cheaper and faster at many tasks than a lot of 32-bit hardware - with the added benefit of being less power-hungry. Still, there is something attractive about old technology. Perhaps it’s children of the 70s and 80s reliving their childhood through Commodore 64s, Apple IIs, and ancient game consoles, but lately it seems there are more and more channels popping up on Youtube talking about retro technology. Whether it’s computer hardware, stereo equipment, vinyl, cassette tapes, game consoles, cars, or mint condition classic sneakers, retro seems to be the “in thing” at the moment.

Just last week, someone brought in a Dell Dimension 4100 (Pentium III 1GHz, 128MB RAM, 20GB HDD) to our refurbishing project. At first we laughed and talked about pulling the hard drive before recycling it, but, because it was in mint condition, and because we thought we had some original ME restore CDs, we dug up the restore CDs, installed Windows Millennium Edition, and stopped laughing when we realized how quick it actually was compared to modern operating systems. Windows ME was one of the most unloved children of the Windows empire, but, looking back, it didn’t seem so bad (at least on the Dimension 4100). We may yet attempt to install some flavour of Linux on this machine, but it isn’t a practical machine for most kinds of Internet use (in fact we needed to put a network card in it, it came with only a modem). Regardless of practical use, there’s something to be said about exploring hardware we couldn’t buy as a child/adult. Although I don’t have any Sun Microsystems hardware anymore, I fondly remember how interesting I found the Sun Enterprise Ultra 2 I bought on eBay was. It was a different experience – boasting a BIOS that was much more flexible than anything we saw on a PC at that time. As much as I’m torn dropping support for 32-bit systems, I agree it’s almost time. The Ubuntu timeline of late 2018 seems about right. By late 2018, I expect our project will be a bit more flush with 64-bit-capable notebooks. The emergence of Virtual Reality hardware will probably only add to the push of better, faster hardware. It’s a bit sad to think we’ll be leaving 32-bit behind, but 25 years after the first 64-bit processors, it’s really about time.