appiah4 wrote on 2025-05-09, 11:22:

Jo22 wrote on 2025-05-08, 20:40:

If Linux becomes an OS that targets modern hardware all the time, then what's the purpose of it? 😟

I'm trying not to start sounding like that "Um Ahktually" linux nerd, but this question tells me you don't really 'get' linux..

Hey, that's the kind of Linux I grew up with! 🙂
Linux used to be the savior for old and forgotten hardware.
Hardware being abandoned by society. It used to be the unix for the poor.
It was this aspect of Linux that I respected.

Since Linux Foundation has no proper roadline for abandoning architectures,
it's to no surprise if someone like me has to wonder where it eventually leads to.
Now the i486 architecture is being dropped, what is going to be dropped next year(s)?

And how does this removal affect, say, external modules that can be loaded?
Are kernel entry points being removed for classic "drivers" that could be loaded via modprobe?

Such changes have the bad habbit of affecting parts of the ecosystem that are not being taken into account first.

Also, is the whole thing related to Rust?
Are parts of the kernel being "thrown out" to make transitioning easier?
It's unlikely, but who knows? I don’t see a clear roadmap here.

To me, the tower PC in the sample picture used to be a typical Linux era PC,
noticeable by the AT case and "good" network card with BNC connector.
Sample picture is borrowed from Wikipedia, for license reaons.

Edit: The one thing that wasn't "cheap" or period-correct about Linux used to be memory consumption.
Linux required three or four time the RAM expansion of a DOS, Windows or OS/2 installation.
It probably gave birth to the first hot-rod PCs among private users.
Say, a i486 with 64 MB of RAM or a Pentium 75 with 256MB of RAM.
Unusual configurations for desktop OSes of the time, but not exactly weird for server systems.

Edit: I'm not making things up, btw. The reputation of Linux used to be like that where I live.
Here for example, is an quote of an older news article, titled "rescue from the junkyard".

Linux is actually the only solution for users who have older computers and don't want to scrap them or upgrade them technically - unless they stop using their device to access the Internet in the future and only use it as a better typewriter.

[Machine translation]
Source: https://www.fr.de/kultur/rettung-schrottplatz-11228248.html

Jo22 wrote on 2025-05-08, 20:40:

Maybe. But it doesn't solve the (my) "problem".
Namely, that current Linux was useful to keep old hardware running.
On the internet, not just isolated on an old PC in the corner in the cellar.

Linux being open source the solution to your "problem" is running

1git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git && checkout -b preserving-486

and preparing to backport future changes.

This will cover your kernel needs, as for userland you most probably need to patch other stuff at some point too.

This is a lot of effort but I am sure fellow vogon members would appreciate this and surely offer help testing /porting!

Cheers,
Flow

Thank you! ^^ It's definitely helpful!

Linux being open source the solution to your "problem" is running

Hi, I meant it more in the way of "my issue with it is: [..]" 😅

Jo22 wrote on 2025-05-09, 15:33:

And how does this removal affect, say, external modules that can be loaded?
Are kernel entry points being removed for classic "drivers" that could be loaded via modprobe?

It doesn't and no. Linux does not have a stable kernel ABI so any kernel modules need to be built for the running kernel anyway.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-05-09, 15:33:

Also, is the whole thing related to Rust?
Are parts of the kernel being "thrown out" to make transitioning easier?
It's unlikely, but who knows? I don’t see a clear roadmap here.

No need to speculate, this is the original e-mail where a CI runner tripped over a corner case with a kernel not configured with TSC but TSC is available in the (emulated) hardware. Linus suggested not to "waste one second of development effort on this kind of issue" so someone else sent a patch series to make RDTSC and CMPXCHG8B mandatory.

Linux simply supports hardware that people show up to write support for and maintain. The m68k architecture is still being maintained even though it's older than the i386 (also helped by the fact that it's a dead architecture, unlike x86 which is still under active development). OTOH, support for Itanium (IA64) was removed in Linux 6.7 because no-one wanted to maintain it any more.

Also consider that based on this thread, kernel 6.7-rc1 (released November 2023) and later are currently not bootable on an early i486 without the CPUID instruction. That was only reported in October 2024, 11 months later. The fix was only committed a few days ago to the x86/urgent branch, might be another week or two before it lands in mainline, and then another week after that before it's backported to supported releases, which means 6.12 and 6.14.

jtchip wrote on 2025-05-09, 22:17:

Linux simply supports hardware that people show up to write support for and maintain. The m68k architecture is still being maintained even though it's older than the i386 (also helped by the fact that it's a dead architecture, unlike x86 which is still under active development). OTOH, support for Itanium (IA64) was removed in Linux 6.7 because no-one wanted to maintain it any more.

It's kind of funny how that happens. Because 386/486 support was intermixed with more modern x86 support through #ifdefs and conditionals, it's "in the way" of the maintenance and testing of that code, while if it were cordoned off elsewhere (like m68k) the maintainers would be able to just leave it alone.

Here is a cool blog post by the developer of i486SX_soft_FPU, a project to restore FPU emulation for 486SX CPUs on NetBSD 10.x.

@Jo22 NetBSD is probably the way to go for a lot of hardware that even newer versions of the Linux kernel don't support anymore. And NetBSD does have a Linux compatibility layer, in case you would still need that to run anything specific on your beloved old hardware. 🙂

Thinking about it, I thought Linux went fully x64 not long ago.

Maybe it's time to split the tree into x32 and x64?

Surely there's a lot of legacy stuff like agp and isa that can safely be left behind in a legacy branch - which can keep the 486 stuff.

myne wrote on 2025-05-11, 09:36:

Thinking about it, I thought Linux went fully x64 not long ago.

Maybe it's time to split the tree into x32 and x64?

Surely there's a lot of legacy stuff like agp and isa that can safely be left behind in a legacy branch - which can keep the 486 stuff.

Don't confuse what the kernel supports with what a distro decides to do with it. It's x86-64 for a reason.

myne wrote on 2025-05-11, 09:36:

Maybe it's time to split the tree into x32 and x64?

That's x86[-32] and x86-64 on Linux, x32 refers to the x32 ABI, which is a separate ABI on an x86-64 kernel to allow programs to use the x86-64 instruction set (more and larger registers, SSE2 for FP, etc.) while still using 32-bit pointers for reduced overhead (and hence restricted the process to a 4GiB address space).

Jo22 wrote on 2025-05-08, 20:40:

If Linux becomes an OS that targets modern hardware all the time, then what's the purpose of it? 😟
Then it's nolonger useful to the hardware hacker who wants to get a 35 year old webcam going.
Or likes to use Linux for testing purposes, for all sorts of hardware, no matter the age.

Why do you keep asking this?

Retro hardware hackers are 0.0001% of Linux users.

Web servers
Supercomputers
Steamdeck
Routers
Embedded appliances
Industrial control systems
Low-cost personal devices
Kernel of Android operating system
Hobbyist Single-Board Computers
OS favoured by software developers, infosec researchers, etc

The list goes on and on and on...

We can all see by now that YOU only use it to revive old machines, but you're still utterly delusional about how it's used today.

DosFreak wrote on 2025-05-11, 09:50:

Don't confuse what the kernel supports with what a distro decides to do with it. It's x86-64 for a reason.

This. It bears repeating that even Debian stopped supporting 486's and even early Pentiums a looooong time ago.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2025-05-08, 22:06:

When the GNU project and later Linux got started, they had to draw the line at what architectures to support. They required that […]
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darry wrote on 2025-05-08, 21:52:

I like running Linux on older hardware too, but I consider that being able to go back about 30 years on the hardware front while […]
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Jo22 wrote on 2025-05-08, 20:40:

Hi, Windows 2000 still ran on i486 - maybe Windows 2000 drivers/applications didn't require CMPXCHG8B yet? Just came to mind, be […]
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Hi, Windows 2000 still ran on i486 - maybe Windows 2000 drivers/applications didn't require CMPXCHG8B yet?
Just came to mind, because Windows XP drivers were actually "Win2k/XP" drivers.
The INF folders, for example, were called "Win2K_XP" and similar.
So they may or may not have required CMPXCHG8B?
Or maybe Windows 2000 had featured CMPXCHG8B emulation?

Edit:
Maybe. But it doesn't solve the (my) "problem".
Namely, that current Linux was useful to keep old hardware running.
On the internet, not just isolated on an old PC in the corner in the cellar.

If Linux becomes an OS that targets modern hardware all the time, then what's the purpose of it? 😟
Then it's nolonger useful to the hardware hacker who wants to get a 35 year old webcam going.
Or likes to use Linux for testing purposes, for all sorts of hardware, no matter the age.

Because, if you have to assemble an old PC to run old Linux 2.4 to test old hardware, then it's silly.
Owners of a 1995 webcam or flatbedscanner etc. want to use the vintage hardware in daily life, purposefully, with modern software.
That's what Linux used to be good for, that's were it did stand out.

The closest to this in Windows world was Windows 98, maybe.
Windows 98SE, for example, was very popular among sellers of second-hand hardware.
Since it had excellent legacy support, eBay sellers had used Windows 98SE to test hardware.
Windows 98SE had shipped drivers (both VXDs and WDMs) for about anything at the time.

Ironically, Windows 11's higher hardware requirements (TPM2) actually have a purpose, but half humanity cries "it's so unfair!".
Here, it's apparently sort of a problem that old hardware nolonger is being supported (officially, there are workarounds).

Typo fixed.

I like running Linux on older hardware too, but I consider that being able to go back about 30 years on the hardware front while using mainstream current distros is reasonable enough. I think it's OK to draw the line somewhere. While we may disagree on exactly where that line should be drawn, we can't reasonably expect support to extend forever.

I recently tried a KL5KUSB101 based USB Ethernet adapter from 1998ish on a modern x86-64 Linux setup and it just worked, at least enough to ping. For almost everything else PCI(E) or USB we can have VMs with passthrough (banked VGA modes seemed to have performance issues for me when using a PCI VGA card).

For ISA passthrough, if someone could manage to interface/bridge something similar to a dISAppointment LPC to ISA bridge to a VM, we might have more ISA options too, even on modern hardware.

Anyway, I'm veering off topic here.

When the GNU project and later Linux got started, they had to draw the line at what architectures to support. They required that machines be at least 32 bits. As the GNU Coding Standards (https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/ … CPU-Portability) say, "However, don’t make any effort to cater to the possibility that an int will be less than 32 bits. We don’t support 16-bit machines in GNU."

286 machines were far more practical in 1991 than a 486 is today, yet they still avoided support--because it cuts down on the #ifdefs, needing to code everything to operate in blocks smaller than 64K (huge pointers), etc. drastically.

Supporting 486 doesn't butcher the code with anywhere near as many #ifdefs as compared to something like supporting 16-bit, but the kernel needs a critical mass of testers and maintainers for that part of the code and if they had that, they wouldn't be dropping it. In particular, floppy controller support was on the chopping block a while back, but someone stepped up to maintain it, so now it isn't.

My personal opinion is that the DJGPP project, FreeDOS, etc., are far more relevant to running an open source OS on your 486 machine, need help, and are glad to accept it. They won't drop support for your machine anytime soon. If anything, with MS-DOS 4.x being open source now, it's arguably an exciting time for open source DOS development and efforts are better spent there...

That all makes sense.

There is also the question of why one would want/need to run up to date Linux on hardware that old ?

Testing stuff can be done with older distros.

As long as there is either an air gap or a firewall or an isolated VLAN, etc, then even networking can be used safely.

As for extending the useful lifespan of past its prime hardware, being able to use hardware that's 20ish years old mostly seamlessly still seems reasonable to me.

There is also the issue of efficiency. A high end Core2 Quad (or Xeon equivalent) from 2007ish can be a fun as retro setup for gaming and hobby type stuff, but running one of those for more serious purposes, with a consistent CPU load will cost a lot electricity. Replace it with a refurbished 100$ Chromebox with an Core i7-8550U from a few years ago and you get a much faster machine that draws a fraction of the power. Sure, you lose a few things like PCIE lanes, but that only matters if you need those. That's just an example.

At the end of the day, one can still get a lot of retro use out of Linux distros (current ones and obsolete ones), IMHO.

SquallStrife wrote on 2025-05-11, 21:57:

Jo22 wrote on 2025-05-08, 20:40:

If Linux becomes an OS that targets modern hardware all the time, then what's the purpose of it? 😟
Then it's nolonger useful to the hardware hacker who wants to get a 35 year old webcam going.
Or likes to use Linux for testing purposes, for all sorts of hardware, no matter the age.

Why do you keep asking this?

Retro hardware hackers are 0.0001% of Linux users.

Because that's how I got to know Linux, as a hobbyists OS.
For example, in early to mid 2000s, in my country, Linux had been gladly used by CB radio fans to replace/support DOS systems for Packet-Radio.

People in the hobby started to use it to run modern BBS software on surplus hardware.
Old Pentium PCs, beige boxes, were a popular choice. Linux was great for this, it had built-in AX.25 protocol support, even.

With upcoming ISDN and DSL, Linux helped to connect the Packet-Radio mailboxes via Internet,
to store/forward e-mails from/into Packet-Radio network
or just run unix version of F6FBB mailbox software or TNN digipeater software (TheNetNode).
The better multitasking capabilities were very well received, too.
Linux served like a server OS, in principle.

A few years later, a special version of Knoppix (AFU-Knoppix) also got popular among radio hobbyists in general.
It included Kernel 2.4 or 2.6, WINE, KDE 3.2/KDE 3.3 and contained all sorts of ham radio software.
It was targeted torwards spare old computers in the ham shack.
To give Windows 98 era PCs new life, in essence. It also supported regular PCs.

Here are some links to give an idea about how it was in CB PR hobby in early 2000s.
The websites aren’t affiliated with me in any way, please don't blame them for my nonsenical write-up. They're not at fault.

PR-Station (DOM700) (ca. 2000, slightly yellowed PC hardware, like it was meant to be; PC running Win 9x)

CB Packet Radio Mailbox DBX32Ø (2021, archived, page about F6FBB mailbox software, DOS/Linux)

FBB Packet-radio BBS mini-HOWTO (LinFBB)

Sorry for the lack of more material, most CB radio pages are now defunct.
I would have to search my bookmarks and backups to find references to the old websites.

SquallStrife wrote on 2025-05-11, 21:57:

[..] but you're still utterly delusional about how it's used today.

Yes, I agree, you're probably right with your analysis.
I assume it's probably because I've started using Linux before it was fully mainstream, ca. late 90s.

At the time, Linux was the domain of geeks, hardware tinkerer, students, fans of cyberspace,
people who repurposed closed-source appliances to run Linux.
That's the time when Linux on a toaster became a running gag.

If you started out with this, then it seems odd to imagine that Linux
is going to be anything else than a hacker OS that's meant to tun on weird stuff nothing else does support.

I mean, rationally you can understand the change of times.
But by heart, emotionally, it's hard to grasp. 😟

Linux, if it was a person, by personality, it was like a car mechanic in an oily jump suit that lived down the streets.
But now, 20 years forward, when you see Linux again,
the person has become a snob in a fancy suit, carrying a suit case and wearing a Rolex and sun glasses.

And then you're standing there, perplexed, wondering what the heck went wrong meantime.
You don't really recognize that person anymore, as if it's someone totally different.
Everyone else, however, behaves as if Linux always had been that way, a succesful career person.

And yes, then, to everyone else, you're then the delusional person if you simply can't accept this so easily.
You're asking people what happened to Linux's old repair shop,
just to receive odd looks of disapproval by everyone.

Edited.

SquallStrife wrote on 2025-05-11, 21:57:

We can all see by now that YOU only use it to revive old machines [..]

Hi - I think I've use it as a tool, mainly. As rescue medium, for hardware testing. Networking, too. Such as Pi-Hole.

Because after all, Linux kernal is like a big driver pack. The actual *nix core is rather small, I assume.
That's why Android uses it to host Android framework. Android is like .NET Framework, maybe.
It can run on various platforms (Linux has Mono project to run .NET apps).

I've used Linux on single-board computers, too, such as Raspberry Pi, which was my daily driver for many years when Windows 7 went EOL.

The sea change in linux is corporate in nature.

Red Hat and their ilk doing their thing.

What bothers me more than stupid things going on in the kernel is totally disastrous things going on in userland.

For me, sysv init is all that linux needs to boot and work properly. Look at what a cancerous piece of shit systemd has become and is still evolving into. Imo that thing is what will finally completely break linux before the kernel creeping manages to.

And by the way, some people like using linux for the sake of using linux on modern new hardware too 😀

But just because it works on modern hw does not mean I like the way it works these days, I am also very much disillusioned.

systemd is not an integral part of linux and there are many distributions that don't use it, favoring initd instead.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-05-12, 01:59:

Linux, if it was a person, by personality, it was like a car mechanic in an oily jump suit that lived down the streets. But now, […]
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Linux, if it was a person, by personality, it was like a car mechanic in an oily jump suit that lived down the streets.
But now, 20 years forward, when you see Linux again,
the person has become a snob in a fancy suit, carrying a suit case and wearing a Rolex and sun glasses.

And then you're standing there, perplexed, wondering what the heck went wrong meantime.
You don't really recognize that person anymore, as if it's someone totally different.
Everyone else, however, behaves as if Linux always had been that way, a succesful career person.

That's quite a rant.
While it's true that its success has changed it - by virtue of who is paid to develop it, I think you're a bit over the top for the topic.
Deprecating computers so old they can barely run the modem kernel is inevitable.
They're not useful to anyone really.
Anyone who wants one of those ancient things is using it for a specific, era appropriate task.
They're not cobbling together Web servers or anything that needs anything modern.
I'd guess there are practically zero people affected by this.

appiah4 wrote on 2025-05-12, 06:30:

systemd is not an integral part of linux and there are many distributions that don't use it, favoring initd instead.

Yes I know; that's why I referred to userland.

The problem is though, that all the major distros are aping into systemd full time - all the main focus is on that. Systemd also infects lots of other projects these days, auth stuff, graphics, desktop environments, dns, etc... - for example Slackware (firmly against systemd) *had* to ship some neutered systemd shit in version 15 just to make the rest of the stuff work smoothly.

Thus, there will come a day when it will be too much effort to neuter all the systemd sprawl when packaging up a distro.

myne wrote on 2025-05-12, 07:48:

That's quite a rant. While it's true that its success has changed it - by virtue of who is paid to develop it, I think you're a […]
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That's quite a rant.
While it's true that its success has changed it - by virtue of who is paid to develop it, I think you're a bit over the top for the topic.
Deprecating computers so old they can barely run the modem kernel is inevitable.
They're not useful to anyone really.
Anyone who wants one of those ancient things is using it for a specific, era appropriate task.
They're not cobbling together Web servers or anything that needs anything modern.
I'd guess there are practically zero people affected by this.

Hi, I have no hard feelings for or against Linux. It also wasn't being meant in relationship with the i486 situation.
It's just my personal point of view, or rather the way Linux had been portraied once.
As a hobby OS, made by hobbyists.

A much worse term was "frickel OS".
In my language, a Frickler is sort of an untalented tinkerer, sort of a quack. When seen in a negative way.
And that term had showed up with Linux back in the day not seldomly.
- Someone can think of that stereotypical picture of a lonely tinkerer in his cellar working on computer hardware.
Surrounded by a soldering station, tools, and cables everywhere. Edit: Text formatting fixed.

But anyway, maybe I should have compared Linux with Robin Hood, rather?
Once Linux was the outlaw, the underdog, the freedom fighter that helped the poor
and fought against the bad guys just like Robin Hood did against the Sheriff of Nottingham.
But now it seems as if Linux itself eventually aims for total power and takes the role of the Sheriff.

Due to its market monopoly and heavy influence, it already suppresses other OSes.
It's the new MS Windows in some ways (Windows even absorbs Linux through WSL).
So there won't be native OSes to certain future processor architectures anymore,
because Linux is considered the default OS from the get go. It's the industry leader.
But that's just my two cents, I have nothing to say about that matter. I'm just an observer.
All I can do is thinking out loud and voice my concerns. Or keep quiet, of course.

By the time the Linux kernel dropped i386 support, no distribution compatible with these CPUs had been released in several years. Dropping i486 support at this time seems about right.

darry wrote on 2025-05-11, 23:11:

There is also the issue of efficiency. A high end Core2 Quad (or Xeon equivalent) from 2007ish can be a fun as retro setup for gaming and hobby type stuff, but running one of those for more serious purposes, with a consistent CPU load will cost a lot electricity. Replace it with a refurbished 100$ Chromebox with an Core i7-8550U from a few years ago and you get a much faster machine that draws a fraction of the power. Sure, you lose a few things like PCIE lanes, but that only matters if you need those. That's just an example.

A few? The CPU is also soldered. A Chromebox is no match to a desktop computer in any way, shape or form.
Even then, while CPUs might have improved significantly over the years, desktop motherboards and video cards have become insanely expensive for what they offer.
My current motherboard has three real PCIe ×16 slots. Let's say I wanted to build a new PC with just two – I'd have to fork over $2,000 for a Threadripper, and by that, I mean just the CPU. The motherboards are obviously in an entirely different class.
10 Gigabit Ethernet has been out for 18 years, yet there are no motherboards supporting it, save for some EATX behemoths and the Asus ProArt ___-CREATOR WIFI series.

Off Topic

Issue with 10gbe is it is extremely hot, sure there are ways to mitigate but I wouldn't trust most cheap motherboard manufacturers to do so so failure rate would likely be way higher than just adding 2.5 and calling it a day. I've been running 10gbe ethernet for years (without issue) and fairly recently using SFP+ adapters (so far have only had one fail after a few months....). My use case is pretty unique for home use since I'm constantly syncing terrabytes of data between systems where it takes days to do so over 10gbe. I could go higher but I'm copying from spinning rust so not much point. heh.

Was looking at m.2 to 10gbe adapters but they suck compared to the usb-c ones (really don't want that heat in my PC and I'd rather have SFP anyway) so may pick up one of those for my m-itx system.

Currently syncing 83TB right now from scratch at a mean of 1105 Mb/s

GemCookie wrote on 2025-05-12, 11:51:

By the time the Linux kernel dropped i386 support, no distribution compatible with these CPUs had been released in several years […]
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By the time the Linux kernel dropped i386 support, no distribution compatible with these CPUs had been released in several years. Dropping i486 support at this time seems about right.

darry wrote on 2025-05-11, 23:11:

There is also the issue of efficiency. A high end Core2 Quad (or Xeon equivalent) from 2007ish can be a fun as retro setup for gaming and hobby type stuff, but running one of those for more serious purposes, with a consistent CPU load will cost a lot electricity. Replace it with a refurbished 100$ Chromebox with an Core i7-8550U from a few years ago and you get a much faster machine that draws a fraction of the power. Sure, you lose a few things like PCIE lanes, but that only matters if you need those. That's just an example.

A few? The CPU is also soldered. A Chromebox is no match to a desktop computer in any way, shape or form.
Even then, while CPUs might have improved significantly over the years, desktop motherboards and video cards have become insanely expensive for what they offer.
My current motherboard has three real PCIe ×16 slots. Let's say I wanted to build a new PC with just two – I'd have to fork over $2,000 for a Threadripper, and by that, I mean just the CPU. The motherboards are obviously in an entirely different class.
10 Gigabit Ethernet has been out for 18 years, yet there are no motherboards supporting it, save for some EATX behemoths and the Asus ProArt ___-CREATOR WIFI series.

My point, which I apparently may have conveyed poorly, was about the potential relevance (or lack thereof) of wanting to run Linux on very old hardware to prolong said hardware's useful life.

I was specifically comparing a high end desktop CPUs from 2007ish (Q9650 or adapted Xeon e5450 ) to the one in a 2018 Chromebox 3 (i7 8550u). The latter is much faster than the former in all benchmarks I can find, including CPUZ, Geekbench and Passmark. The i7 8550u does that while consuming a fraction of the power of the Q9650. Feel free to provide evidence pointing to the contrary.

That specific Chromebook does have 4 lanes of PCIE 3.0 (equivalent to x16 PCIE 1.1 in terms of bandwidth) in the form of an m.2 slot that can be adapted to a PCIE 3.0 x16 physical slot with 4 lanes of bandwidth using an adapter. It can also be expanded to multiple downstream PCIE slots using a cheap PCIE bridge. This is all moot if one does not need the PCIE slots for a given use case.

The fact that the CPU is soldered is irrelevant. That CPU is faster than the fastest socket 775 CPU in existence. Consequently, upgradability of the Chromebox's CPU is beside the point.

That a Chromebox is not a replacement for a modern desktop, especially not a high end one with plenty of expandability is both obvious and beside the point.

The point I was trying to make is that, while using Linux can keep old hardware usable and useful, there comes a point where even pedestrian consumer appliance type hardware like a somewhat dated Chromebox can

- be faster
- run cooler
- be cheaper to operate

than very old high end desktop hardware, depending in the actual use case. Not everyone needs lots of PCIE I/O and/or a dedicated GPU for whatever potential use case one may have for a nearly 20-year old desktop. And for use cases where one does need the extra I/O, it may still be more practical and economical to get newer, but still old desktop or datacenter grade hardware rather than to try to milk a once high end dinosaur to the bone, regardless of the OS.

P.S. Yes, I am aware that dinosaurs were not mammals.