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Linux Letting Go: 32-bit Builds On the Way Out (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous shares a report on The Register:Major Linux distributions are in agreement: it's time to stop developing new versions for 32-bit processors. Simply: it's a waste of time, both to create the 32-bit port, and to keep 32-bit hardware around to test it on. At the end of June, Ubuntu developer Dimitri Ledkov chipped into the debate with this mailing list post, saying bluntly that 32-bit ports are a waste of resources. "Building i386 images is not 'for free', it comes at the cost of utilising our build farm, QA and validation time. Whilst we have scalable build-farms, i386 still requires all packages, autopackage tests, and ISOs to be revalidated across our infrastructure." His proposal is that Ubuntu version 18.10 would be 64-bit-only, and if users desperately need to run 32-bit legacy applications, the'll have to do so in containers or virtual machines. [...] In a forum thread, the OpenSUSE Chairman account says 32-bit support "doubles our testing burden (actually, more so, do you know how hard it is to find 32-bit hardware these days?). It also doubles our build load on OBS".
I think that the trouble finding testing hardware is quite telling.
Can end users even buy a new, off-the-shelf 32-bit system these days, except for specialized devices like embedded systems?
Is there anything more than a relatively tiny fraction of the user base that is stuck on 32-bit hardware, that can't use virtual machines to run that software on something that's not a potato?
And I mean, it's not like the old 32-bit versions of OS's are gone. Windows 95 is still around. It didn't go away. I'm willing to bet there are still Windows 95 machines running somewhere in mission critical systems in places around the world.
Yes, there's no security updates, but just unplug it from the internet and you're safe from the vast majority of attacks, and if you're worried about local access to your Windows 95 machine... install a thicker door?
At some point technology has to move on.
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Well, I mean, if you're running Windows 10 right now... uhh.
Lemme rephrase. If Ubuntu 18.10 is 64-bit only, is that a problem? What show-stopping problem for a 2006 MacBook is present in 18.04 but fixed in 18.10?
What's wrong with running 18.04 until the hardware dies?
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Uh... as more time goes on, more exploits are found in all software, making all systems gradually more insecure. It's almost like there were a universal law governing such things *cough*.
Ubuntu's going to support IA-32 images for at least another five years (EOL for 16.04), probably seven (18.04 EOL). If your IA-32 system is still chugging by then, there'll still likely be Debian and CentOS to switch to.
Well, in 2018, the 2006 MacBook will be 12 years old. 18.04 is an LTS release and will have 5 years of support and security updates. By the time there are no more security patches, the machine will be 17 years old and software exploits will be the least of the user's concerns if it is still his/her main machine.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
The problem is not newly-bought consumer electronics or legacy software. The problem is legacy hardware. I'm still using the Thinkpad I bought in 2006 (4:3 aspect ratio display). Luckily it's a 64-bit processor, but others have older 32-bit machines.
It's also not about the kernel -- Linux itself will support 32-bit architecture for a long while more, and most software will compile correctly on both 32-bit and 64-bit, though it will be less and less true as distributions stop their QA and you are left with only the upstream development team.
Of course, these old machines are pretty few, so it probably does make sense for Ubuntu to drop 32-bit packages. Other more enthusiast-targeted distributions will probably keep 32-bit support. In particular Gentoo compiles everything locally.
Posts like this always confuse me. The terms i386 and 32-bit are not interchangeable. AFAIK, they were only talking about getting rid of i386 architecture (i.e. 20+ year old 32-bit hardware), but would maintain i686 (more recent 32-bit hardware) support.
Then use Debian. While discouraging i386 as default download is long overdue, judging from other old architectures, it'll be a long long time until i386 is retired from the first class arch set, and even then it'll be welcome in second class (AKA debian-ports), among stuff like m68k, alpha or sh4.
Or, use Debian-hurd. It's available for i386 only!
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So much for Linux being "great for old hardware". This is really just an dubious move by distros and really just ignores a huge area where Linux can see use: Old hardware where Windows wont run. You also have another aspect of this which is your basically trashing 32 bit app support if you do not include 32 bit libraries, or, providing a thunk between 32 bit apps and 64 bit libraries.
Even if 32 bit libraries are not built, you should be able to run a 32 bit app by compiling the libraries yourself, so distros could at least allow people to build 32 bit libraries easily from source packages, (with the benefit of automatically building all dependancies).
Another area this will create problems is with VMs on even recent hardware, Intel chips up to just a year or two ago didnt include VT-x or a Ring 2, which means that virtualization of 64 bit OSs will not work.
What's there to "find"? You can kick-off a 32-bit VM under any hypervisor — both on the cloud or on your own desktop. You can automate the VM-creation and tear-down on your build-farm quite easily.
I too strongly prefer to have a system, where size_t is equal to off_t (so you could mmap an entire file and not worry about it), but that is not "free". 64-bit pointers are, obviously, twice-wider than 32-bit ones, so "hairy" structures — with lots of pointers in them — nearly double in size. If none of your processes require more than 4Gb of virtual memory, there is no reason — other than the developers' laziness — to go 64-bit.
Whether it is an OS embedded inside a router or a point-of-sale machine, or even a single-user web-and-email desktop, 32-bit is perfectly sufficient and the overhead of 64-bit not justified.
And that laziness is what is keeping us back... Over the last 18 years, according to Moore's law, our computers have become at least 2^12 times more powerful. Now ask yourself, is the user-experience — however you choose to measure it — 4096 times better than it was in 1998? And, if it is not, where did the gains in hardware go?
By refusing to setup/use tens or even hundreds of 32-bit test-systems, developers force thousands and millions of users to upgrade. That is not a fair trade-off.
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It's becoming more clear every day how the major Linux distributions have all been drinking the same cool-aid.
Seems so, but as of now 32 bit Linux has 22 years left (year 2038). I heard that may be fixed but AFAIK nothing yet. In any case for 32 bit I would use NetBSD or OpenBSD since the 2038 issue does not exist for them. I would like to know what "major dist" officially includes :) One distro I consider major just released a 32 bit version.