These statistics brought much internal debate within the Lubuntu team, but we decided that going forward, we need to adapt for the current state of the market. Therefore, our main focus is shifting from providing a distribution for old hardware to a functional yet modular distribution focused on getting out of the way and letting users use their computer.
What is old though?
What one person may consider old, may not be considered old to others. Iāve worked in an environment where I was given a new PC every 6-9 months by my employer; the cost of the hardware was little compared to my salary & productivity gained by faster CPU/RAM compiling code. People in that environment will consider a 3 year old PC old, yet now Iām typing this into a dell desktop from 2009 running the latest Lubuntu development release (ie. kinetic).
The ānew directionā blog states
This means that Lubuntu will stay light, and for users with old systems, should still be usable. But we will no longer provide minimum system requirements and we will no longer primarily focus on older hardware.
Iām involved in QA (Quality Assurance) and my most used box is a few years older than this 2009 desktop, but Iāve upgraded CPU a little & increased RAM, as Iād expect most users would have if still using older hardware (where possible).
I often see posts about Lubuntu on old hardware. Lubuntu never gave any definitions on what old is. Old is not our aim, but where possible, we still perform some testing using what maybe considered old hardware; boxes from as old as from 2006 currently; as little RAM as 2GB, though most QA is done on newer boxes than these.
What is this thread for?
Iāve started this thread for any discussions on old hardware, as Iām often seeing them on other threads, on various sites. Old hardware is not our focus. (Besides what I used as examples here (2009 & 2006 desktops) you may not consider old anyway).
To add some color and perspective, for me any computer older than like five to seven years is something Iād consider old. Trying to define old for everyone would be like trying to knit fog.
Since Lubuntu is āā¦shifting (away) fromā¦ā it shouldnāt really matter since older hardware may (or may not) benefit as a side effect.
But if Lubuntu has a genuine intent to place some importance (however small) on āolderā hardware, then it would be better to at least define a range for point of reference.
The average life span of a device is usually quoted between 3 to 5 years. Do these devices go straight to the dump? No, most of them find a 2nd owner and some of them get installed with leaner distros because the original OS updates wonāt run properly on them. This can double the life span i.e 6-10 years.
This is why you still see older devices hanging around. Itās because people find that they can still run them for something useful.
Eventually devices break, people like to buy new hardware and OSs have to move with the trend of demanding software and hardware. There is a limit somewhere where āoldā hardware cannot meet this demand.
I think itās fair to stop support at the ādoubleā mark. So 6-10 years is for me means getting āoldā.
That machine has firmware bugs and thus the ISO needed to be in written specific ways to boot from thumb-drive.
I use a dc7700 & dc7900 in my QA-testing of Lubuntu, and Ubuntu carries patches for that firmware (so direct cloning works, but Iāve been warned those patches will be dropped in time), but how your write the ISO to thumb-drive really matters on hardware with firmware issues.