Struggle supporting new OSs 🔗 link

Hi, I have been thinking about this in a while, and I am now convinced that we should aim at a 4.4.0 release which just drops support for old libraries not available or deprecated in modern OSs/distributions.

We can rename and `sed` the version for the current 4.4 branch, but this will ease many of the efforts which are draining our energies to keep compatibility, and at the same time if we need minor bugfixes in the 4.3 branch, we can add them for dinosaurs which still require old libraries.

What do you think?

Nicola

I also agree with a 5.x release.  Forward looking to the latest OS
versions and current security protocols is what needs focused on. If
someone wishes to use an older OS, then the older Xymon version will
work for them.  Backwards compatibility should not be the priority with
this forward facing effort.

Kris Springer
I/O Network Administration

On 3/2/26 9:16 AM, Stef Coene wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I too don't mind dropping support for old distributions but I prefer
> doing this while switching to a 5.x release.
>
> I think most of the old libraries are used on the xymon server and I
> don't see any valid reason to not upgrade the OS to a supported version.
>
> Worst case scenario (like I had when switching from 32-bit to 64-bit)
> you have to export and import the rrd files if you want to keep the
> history graphs.
>
>
> Stef
>
> On 2026-03-01 22:47, Nicola wrote:
>> Hi, I have been thinking about this in a while, and I am now
>> convinced that we should aim at a 4.4.0 release which just drops
>> support for old libraries not available or deprecated in modern
>> OSs/distributions.
>> We can rename and `sed` the version for the current 4.4 branch, but
>> this will ease many of the efforts which are draining our energies to
>> keep compatibility, and at the same time if we need minor bugfixes in
>> the 4.3 branch, we can add them for dinosaurs which still require old
>> libraries.
>> What do you think?
>>
>>
>> Nicola
>> Mastodon <https://joinmastodon.org/>: @user-3ad00cf7a0c9@xymon.invalid
>> <mailto:user-3ad00cf7a0c9@xymon.invalid>
>>

I still have older versions in my environment.  As long as the older clients are still able to send reports to servers running on the newer versions/OS's I don’t see any problems dropping support for the older OS versions.  There's no breaking change here, we're just not releasing new software versions for older OS's.  Along the same line, I don't think it would be a problem to use 4.4 as long as the older clients are able to send reports to the server on newer versions.

Scot Kreienkamp | Applications Infrastructure Architect | La-Z-Boy Corporate 
(XXX) XXX-XXXX | X-XXX-XXX-XXXX | user-9678697f1438@xymon.invalid
One La-Z-Boy Drive | Monroe, Michigan 48162 | la-z-boy.com
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-----Original Message-----
From: Grant Taylor via Xymon <xymon@xymon.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 1, 2026 5:30 PM
To: xymon@xymon.com
Cc: Grant Taylor <user-86150bc7e4bb@xymon.invalid>
Subject: [Xymon] Re: Struggle supporting new OSs

On 3/1/26 3:47 PM, Nicola wrote:
> Hi, I have been thinking about this in a while, and I am now convinced
> that we should aim at a 4.4.0 release which just drops support for old
> libraries not available or deprecated in modern OSs/distributions.

Hum.

> We can rename and `sed` the version for the current 4.4 branch, but this
> will ease many of the efforts which are draining our energies to keep
> compatibility, and at the same time if we need minor bugfixes in the 4.3
> branch, we can add them for dinosaurs which still require old libraries.

I don't object to a significant change in backwards compatibility in
concept.

> What do you think?
I think that any such significant change in backwards compatibility
should likely be done at a major version number.  So how about 5.x
instead of 4.4.x

Just my opinion.

--
Grant. . . .