I would not count on all major distros maintaining support for processors as old as Core 2 forever.
RHEL 9 in particular (and by extension CentOS Steam, Alma, Rocky) already dropped support for all of the processors affected by this breakage since 2022.
Linux systems often group these CPU feature set generations into levels, where “x86-64-v2” requires SSE4 and POPCNT (Nehalem/2008 and newer) and “x86-64-v3” requires AVX2 (Haswell/2013 and newer).
Ubuntu and Fedora are already evaluating optimized package builds for both v2 and v3 but haven’t announced any plans to drop baseline x86-64 yet; I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen within the next two years. Debian is a relatively safer bet for old hardware.
Because Windows is also perfectly fine for running Windows applications & games. It can also be a royal pain in the arse to set up Windows emulation on Linux depending on your graphics card and some other factors.
It’s actually easier to get Linux running on Windows since it has WSL. I have Ubuntu running under Windows with IntelliJ open at the moment and postgres running in the background right now.
I think it was a way to say the trend is still in favor of using windows. It takes time for these sorts of trends to slow down and go in another direction.
Including a lot of corporate stuff like the Citrix application suite which admittedly barely even works on windows, and a whole load of telephony systems that require windows.
I am in the process of changing before W11 is the only W choice. Many of my steam games work on nix, using the latest Ubuntu now but may need to shop around for another distro, including VR. Except my OGVive won’t display, the steam client loads and the mirror comes up and if you move the headset you can even see it move in the environment but… no video on the screens. No VR is a hard deal breaker and I do not have $1000 for a newer headset. Once I get over this hurdle on my laptop I can begin to migrate my desktop.
Others have given a lot of good reasons but those mostly have to do with more business related reasons than casual computer usage. Biggest reason people don’t switch is that the average computer user, who only needs it for casual usage, has no clue how to install an operating system. They simply use what is available at the time of purchase and big box chain stores predominantly sell windows machines. Now and then you may see someone offering a system with a flavor of Linux but that is few and far between. The fact that there are so many variants of Linux is both a benefit to why tech savvy people love it and a hindrance to mass adoption because people like consistent convenience. That is why the iPhone has done so well, each device has the exact same OS and experience. And that consistency with mass adoption means there is a certain level of support that the general user expects. They can go to most PC repair shops and get their windows system fixed no problem but with Linux not every shop is willing to touch the machines so there needs to be more self reliance. So when I say most casual users would be fine with Linux it’s true but for adoption it’s a tricky uphill battle of mass availability of a single user experience that has broad in person technical support.
It’s penguin time
I would not count on all major distros maintaining support for processors as old as Core 2 forever.
RHEL 9 in particular (and by extension CentOS Steam, Alma, Rocky) already dropped support for all of the processors affected by this breakage since 2022.
Linux systems often group these CPU feature set generations into levels, where “x86-64-v2” requires SSE4 and POPCNT (Nehalem/2008 and newer) and “x86-64-v3” requires AVX2 (Haswell/2013 and newer).
Ubuntu and Fedora are already evaluating optimized package builds for both v2 and v3 but haven’t announced any plans to drop baseline x86-64 yet; I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen within the next two years. Debian is a relatively safer bet for old hardware.
That’s why we have the freedom to create different distros.
Good to know
For real. With the improvements to running windows applications(games) on Linux over the last year it’s perfectly fine for the majority of pc users.
So why don’t Windows users switch at this point?
Because Windows is also perfectly fine for running Windows applications & games. It can also be a royal pain in the arse to set up Windows emulation on Linux depending on your graphics card and some other factors.
It’s actually easier to get Linux running on Windows since it has WSL. I have Ubuntu running under Windows with IntelliJ open at the moment and postgres running in the background right now.
I guess that’s a fair compromise.
Inertia.
I don’t know what physics have to do with this.
Get ready to downvote.
I think it was a way to say the trend is still in favor of using windows. It takes time for these sorts of trends to slow down and go in another direction.
Got it
Because some very important applications (microsoft office, adobe suit, some very popular multiplayer games, cad software etc etc) still don’t work.
Including a lot of corporate stuff like the Citrix application suite which admittedly barely even works on windows, and a whole load of telephony systems that require windows.
So not having enough software is due to not having many users, and not having many users is due to not having enough software, and the cycle repeats.
This is how Windows Phone got killed, ladies and gentlemen. But since Linux is open source, it’s basically invincible.
I am in the process of changing before W11 is the only W choice. Many of my steam games work on nix, using the latest Ubuntu now but may need to shop around for another distro, including VR. Except my OGVive won’t display, the steam client loads and the mirror comes up and if you move the headset you can even see it move in the environment but… no video on the screens. No VR is a hard deal breaker and I do not have $1000 for a newer headset. Once I get over this hurdle on my laptop I can begin to migrate my desktop.
Good luck on that.
Others have given a lot of good reasons but those mostly have to do with more business related reasons than casual computer usage. Biggest reason people don’t switch is that the average computer user, who only needs it for casual usage, has no clue how to install an operating system. They simply use what is available at the time of purchase and big box chain stores predominantly sell windows machines. Now and then you may see someone offering a system with a flavor of Linux but that is few and far between. The fact that there are so many variants of Linux is both a benefit to why tech savvy people love it and a hindrance to mass adoption because people like consistent convenience. That is why the iPhone has done so well, each device has the exact same OS and experience. And that consistency with mass adoption means there is a certain level of support that the general user expects. They can go to most PC repair shops and get their windows system fixed no problem but with Linux not every shop is willing to touch the machines so there needs to be more self reliance. So when I say most casual users would be fine with Linux it’s true but for adoption it’s a tricky uphill battle of mass availability of a single user experience that has broad in person technical support.
Yeah, that explains all I need to know.
Specific software requirements for work is the main reason for me.
Also, last time I used linux, it kept breaking, so I had to reinstall the OS about once a month and I had no clue what kept breaking it.
God damn.
the big thing is active directory. That is one thing Windows has made very easy to setup and maintain.
Because they haven’t ascended and continue to scrabble about like pigs in shit.
You’re not helping with traction either, that’s for sure.
What do you mean? I’m an Arch Priest! I help the scutters find Truth.