Intel ending Legacy BIOS support

[dos2unix]

Intel Planning To End Legacy BIOS Support By 2020 - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

This means any new computers you buy after January 2021 will be UEFI only.
You might think won't change things much, but some Linux distro's have already stated they won't
continue developing for Legacy BIOS systems. (no more syslinux, no more /biosboot )

Fedora 34 or 35 is expected to be the last version with legacy BIOS support.

Fedora 33 Is Finally Here! 7 New Feature Changes With This Release

Now that Fedora 33 has landed, considering the feature changes, it looks to be one of the biggest release ever. Fedora 33 brings in the latest and greatest of open source software offering to the table. Let’s see what are these changes that make Fedora 33 worth trying out.

itsfoss.com

Rumors around the SuSE and Ubuntu camps say they will likely follow suite.

I guess the thinking is... if you want to continue running older hardware, then run an older OS on it.
Fortunately most computers in the last decade or so support both UEFI and legacy BIOS.

 

[KGIII]

I strongly, strongly suspect that there will continue to be legacy OSes available.

You can still get 32 bit OSes - quite a few of them even, as one example.

If there's one thing the Linux community is good at, it's ensuring that you can still use older hardware. I have no reason to expect that to change, regardless of what Intel does or doesn't do.

 

[LorenDB]

some Linux distro's have already stated they won't
continue developing for Legacy BIOS systems. (no more syslinux, no more /biosboot )

Reminds me of SerpentOS, although that's focusing more on supporting modern standards only.

If there's one thing the Linux community is good at, it's ensuring that you can still use older hardware.

True. I don't forsee anybody having to ditch their BIOS-based PCs simply because Intel says to.

 

[jglen490]

There are many of us who configure the UEFI/BIOS on our machines to be straightup UEFI and avoid Legacy and CSM like the plague. This is good news.

Linux will always run on older hardware, and that older hardware will be around for a long time - even 32bit based CPUs. The last I looked on DistroWatch, there was on the order of 50 Linux and BSD distros that are 32bit oriented, almost all of them long time familiar Linux names.

 

[dos2unix]

Linux will always run on older hardware, and that older hardware will be around for a long time - even 32bit based CPUs. The last I looked on DistroWatch, there was on the order of 50 Linux and BSD distros that are 32bit oriented, almost all of them long time familiar Linux names.

Maybe, but how many people do you know running Commodore64's, Apple II's, Amiga's and Atari 5200's? I agree it'll take a while yet, but I'm still pretty sure it will happen.

 

[Deleted member 101831]

When the going got tough with the Meltdown / Spectre vulnerability Intel's support sucked for any Intel processor that didn't fall into a certain time frame category.

I'm not an Intel hater and own / use several Intel products however none of the processors I have and use received any Meltdown / Spectre vulnerability patches / fixes whatever.

I understand why there were none so please spare the lecture.

The open source world of Linux and Firefox kept my old outdated computers safe as it could from Meltdown / Spectre and whatever other vulnerabilities and I'm cool with that.

The wife uses Windows 10 and has the brand new computers and I get the old outdated leftovers for Linux.

I have some old legacy desktop builds with Windows 98 just because they still run the old Flight Simulators and other cool old software I have and may use once in a great while.

So Intel and AMD and everyone else can drop legacy support for all I care.