Re: Question: Using USB Wi-Fi adapters with older Debian versions
On Monday 01 September 2025 04:24:59 pm John Scott wrote:
> There is never a reason to intentionally use an older version of Debian. I think this is a misconception that new users often have when they're coming from a background of proprietary software, where every new version of an operating system increases system requirements even if just as an anti-competitive tactic to compel purchasing a new device. There are rare exceptions, but Debian is community-developed and never intentionally sabotages something that worked yesterday from working today. Radio transceivers do not have expiration dates and we will not impose them. A better way to think of it is new releases of Debian are intended to correct mistakes in older versions and keep up with the state-of-the-art in whatever people want to use their gizmos for. We don't make cheesy sequels here 🙂
You'd be surprised. I was, a few years back, when I went on a service call to a large retail chain store and was told to bring a keyboard, a monitor, and a BIOS update on floppy. The first two were to replace, for the duration of the service, the very limited screen and keyboard of the cash register I was working on. I don't recall details of the hardware, or whether it was particularly limited, but the OS in question was RH 7!
I've been running linux since 1999, and one thing that I've noticed is that newer versions tend to be bigger, taking longer to download and perhaps requiring a bit more in the way of resources to run on than earlier ones. Perhaps that's at least in part due to what you're saying about "keep up with the state of the art" in terms of newer hardware, I don't know. I know I see lots of changes and I'm not sure that I understand the reasons behind those changes, but that's another thread that I haven't gotten around to starting (yet?) possibly because I'm not sure where to start...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
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Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
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