Guys I truly don’t mean to spam the community but these are legit questions. Yesterday I posted about linux compatibility and computers and every single person gave me knowledge to use and you’re all awesome.

Now my question is, I will undoubtedly be purchasing an older machine, would an older but good running machine still be able to install the latest kernels or versions of distros or are you limited to older versions only, based on the era of your laptop or is it really about the hardware you have? I know ram, disk space, basic stuff like that matters with distros, but I know that will not be a problem. I guess I’m thinking beyond that like processors. are older processors or anything else hold certain machines from being compatible with the newest and greatest kernels? Thanks!

  • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
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    8 months ago

    Linux kernel is really good at backwards compatibility, better than any other OS.

    Software can be bad at being backwards compatible with older kernels, but you should be able to run newer ones.

    • Macaroni9538@lemmy.mlOP
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      8 months ago

      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?