Sun, 17 Sep 2006
Supporting old kernels
(From a debian-devel@ post arguing against support for 2.4 kernels.)
The problem with supporting old kernels is not just the need to maintain a few packages like initrd-tools or modutils, but that every important package cannot rely on features of modern kernels: inotify, sysfs, etc.
This means that Debian as a whole will either lack support for features relying on these kernel features or will become more and more complex due to compatibility code.
Please consider carefully the effects of advocating support for old kernels.