On Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 9:33 AM, Simon Lees
There are plenty of manufacturing facilities running really old OS's to support there old hardware with old drivers, generally the key is to either not put them on a network or put them on a segregated network with no internet access. At the last company I worked for most of the computers in manufacturing had no internet access and when you wanted to put a new file on or change something you used a flash drive.
The thing is that this computer also runs our software. And our software progresses. We add new features. As one does. Often this results in new library requirements. We have no interest in being stuck at the level of things available 5 or 10 years ago. I suspect that a possible solution is to move the proprietary system to it's own computer, and control it over the network via our own protocol. We have done this before. It does isolate us from these sad facts of life. In fact, we use openSUSE images built with kiwi that allow these computers to boot without an OS. From the OS POV they are diskless and do not change the boot images - only temp stuff in RAM. So they never get corrupt and are easy to set up (after the first one...). Oh the things we do with openSUSE... There is always a solution. A 32-bit Tumbleweed is one of them that creates the smallest disturbance. But there are others. It's what keeps me in a job :) -- Roger Oberholtzer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org