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this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I'm sorry, but what exactly do you mean by backwards compatibility? Like if I installed the latest version of say Ubuntu, it will automatically scale back the kernel to one that fits the specs of my computer?
The kernel has drivers for very old hardware. It was news last year when support was dropped for i486. That is a 25 year old CPU.
i486 is still supported by the recent Linux kernel: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/x86/Makefile_32.cpu, and it is a 34 years old architecture. Everything else you wrote is correct.