The topic Linux 7.2 finally drops support for a 44-year-old graphics card is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
It hasn’t been a good few months for people who want to run their four-decade-old hardware on Linux. A few days ago, we had to bid farewell to i486 support after Linux 7.1 was finally released, and it doesn’t seem like Linux 7.2 will be any more merciful. A new commit confirms that everyone who runs a modern-day Linux distro on a 44-year-old GPU will be left out come the next kernel update, but I have a sneaking suspicion that nobody will miss it.
As spotted by Phoronix, a new merge has been made for Linux 7.2’s release. Part of the commit contains some clean-up for older driver hardware that no longer sees use, and unfortunately, that does mean the Hercules monochrome ISA graphics adapter drivers are getting removed. I’m sorry, but it just had to happen.
If you’re unfamiliar with this 44-year-old graphics card, it was essentially a GPU before the term ‘GPU’ was invented. It was released back in 1982 and has the technical specifications to handle anything that early 80s PCs could throw at it, including—get this—a maximum resolution of 720×348 monochrome pixels, 32KB of VRAM (which was later expanded to a whopping 64KB), and an 18.43 kHz horizontal frequency. Incredible stuff.
On release day, the Hercules Monochrome ISA graphics card sold for $499, which is around $1,700 in today’s money. It did get a bit cheaper later on with the Hercules Graphics Card Plus (HGC+) at $299, but that initial price point almost makes the RTX 5090 look cheap. Some old Hercules graphics cards are still floating around eBay and fetch low triple digits, but I don’t think anyone is running Ubuntu off one.