Phooronix: "Linux 7.3 Deprecates Many Older 32-bit ARM Platforms:

[Dante Blando]

I have two Netwinders. I installed IDE SSDs on both, one of which may have
died.

I have been walking them through distro versions to get them closer to
recent specs. This has been a challenge but an educational one: for
example, Debian last provided a Netwinder-specific install with v5.0
(Woody).

I enjoy figuring out what the StrongARM (arm4vl) from 1997 can still do.
They're the great grandparent of the armv8 chips in our cell phones. They
may not have floating point units, but they can handle a surprising amount
of thinking in command line.

It's a bummer that this line of support within Linux is coming to an end.
Corel did the work that added ARM support to the Linux kernel by getting
Red Hat Linux to run in these machines we love. Their original thought was
specific: they wanted simple computers that provided VGA output to
projectors. In turn, they linked embedded processors to the open source
world.

I don't know who remembers how embedded programming worked before Linux was
RTOS-capable. Most companies had to pay continuing license and royalty fees
to some RTOS provider and their C-based tool kit. There was also Nucleus
OS, which let you build your device's features without paying them for a
percentage of your future revenue -- for $90k. This held back a lot of
small scale projects that we take for granted today.

Then again, they were kind enough to keep us in the loop long after the
arm6el and better ARM CPUs had surpassed our machines. This doesn't close
the book, but it makes me want to show these grandfather clocks to more of
the world.


On Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 11:34 D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> wrote:

> > From: Ralph Siemsen <ralphs at netwinder.org>
>
> > The writing is on the wall for sure. It was discussed in July:
> > https://lwn.net/ml/all/20260701212353.2196041-1-arnd@kernel.org/
> > and previously in 2024.
> >
> > Also worth reading: https://lwn.net/Articles/1035727/ or you can find
> videos
> > of the talk that Arnd has given at several conferences.
> >
> > Is anyone still using their NetWinder? If so what distro (if any) are you
> > using? I did a quick trial with 6.x kernel and buildroot a few months
> ago, it
> > booted successfully, but I didn't do much testing.
>
> My NetWinder is in my closet, awaiting my having more time (may never
> happen).
>
> I have so many things in my closets that won't work when I get around to
> taking them out.
>
> I love the idea of indefinite support, but somebody has to do the work.
> Linux has been better than Windows but I do have orphans.
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Netwinder at netwinder.org
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>
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