Support for "old" hardware (was:Re: kern/148741: [sound] Headphones are deaf (do not work) on Lenovo ThinkPad X300)

[Julian H. Stacey]

Hi,
Reference:
> From:		"Dieter BSD" <dieterbsd at engineer.com> 
> Date:		Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:11:28 -0500 
> Message-id:	<20121127231130.106340 at gmx.com> 

"Dieter BSD" wrote:
> Alexander writes:
> > Also, adding special exception for this laptop to the driver is quite
> > pointless because while it will pass next 6 months FreeBSD release cycle
> > this already not new laptop will be out of market for even more time and
> > will be mostly forgotten.
> 
> Are we to throw computers in the landfill once they are 5 minutes old?
> Not very green. :-(

Agreed.
We don't turn our equipment off just 'cos our model no longer on sales shelves.
Not all users companies & countries are rich & constantly buying the latest.
There's markets for 2nd hand laptops ( inc. eg a shop 2 streets from here).

Older hardware can be better & more available:
- Cheaper or free (grab the boss's `old' replaced MS PC & install BSD).
- On the flat of the bath tub graph curve of engineering reliability:
  More time for others to discover & document which PCs have 
  exploding laptop batteries & broken in-disk BIOSes, etc.
- More time for the public source community to develop drivers.
- (My old laptop has much better speakers than my 2 new laptops).

Supporting older hardware helps tempt MS users eg:
 "Rather than buy a new PC to support the latest bloated MS upgrade,
  why not try install a Free BSD or Linux, more efficient to cope
  with limited resources on your existing PC - & spend Nothing !
  (Or if you must buy a new MS PC, install BSD on the old & sample a Free OS)."

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultant, Munich http://berklix.com
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