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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".
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?
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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.
We at least need enough 32-bit packages available in the 64-bit distro (whether by dpkg --add-architecture i386, or by installing "lib32" packages like we used to do) to install and run Wine.
You see, to run Win32 programs, your Wine emulator binary needs to be a 32-bit Linux/ELF application. I suppose it could emulate cross-architecture, but wine prides itself on *not* emulating native code generation (for performance). Otherwise it would be as slow as a software virtualization solution like Bochs or (non-KVM) qemu.
Wine, in turn, depends on a number of system libraries for core services. It then implements common Windows APIs "in terms of" available platform libraries. Direct3D in terms of OpenGL; DirectSound in terms of libasound2 or libpulse; etc. These libraries, linked into a 32-bit binary, must also be 32-bit.
I agree that there's no point in testing 32-bit *hardware* any longer, but I hope they continue to ship 32-bit *builds* (even if they stop making 32-bit installation CDs). There's just too much software on the Win32 platform that needs to run on Linux (desktop OR server; see game servers) to abandon this segment of the market.
RPM non-binary package:
noarch
Used for packages that aren't arch-specific, documentation, configuration, etc.
Sun/Oracle:
sparcv9 sparcv9v sparc sparc64 sparc64v sparcv8
sparc is sparc32 v7 abi (or should be... systems: ipx ss2, etc)
sparcv8 is v8+ abi (32 bit with some new instructions, ss4/5/10/20)
sparcv9/sparc64 is sun ultra+ systems (ultra 1 and above with 64 bit processors.)
sparcv9v is (I assume) Niagra chips and above, containing virtualization/containerization tech.
Hitachi SuperH:
sh4 sh4a sh sh3
Not sure what arch 'sh' is (sh2?3?)
sh3/4 were used in some routers and I think the Sega Saturn/Dreamcast/Naomi 1/2 consoles/arcade boards. Have never actually seen one outside a console in real life, although in japan at least there were apparently some routers using them as embedded processors running linux.
ARM:
aarch64 armv5tel armv6hl armv3l armv6l armv4b armv7hl armv4l armv7l armv5tejl
aarch64 is the 64 bit arm extensions. The rest are arm versions from 3 to 7 with different option flags. I think wikipedia has a comprehensive article on what they all mean. Lots of possible binary incompatibilities with arm binaries if you don't build to a specific instruction subset, which almost nobody ever did. v5->7 should I believe be forwards compatible. v6 and 7 definitely are.
Alpha:
alphapca56 alpha alphaev5 alphaev56 alphaev6 alphaev67
DEC's legacy shat all over by Compaq+HP. Better chip than IA64 if they had only produced them on newer processes and provided PC-prices entry level systems to keep developers engaged. China is supposedly producing homegrown knockoffs of these chips for fpu calculations in one of their supercomputers.
x86/x86_64:
geode amd64 i386 i486 pentium3 x86_64 i586 pentium4 i686 athlon ia32e
geode is amd's embedded x86, used in the original released OLPCs and various other embedded systems and devices. Not sure the exact x86 arch it is equivalent to (486->586, and maybe newer arch features)
ia32e I think is the x32 or x86_64 using 32 bit pointer ABI which allows the register file of x86_64 but only using 32 bit pointer references to keep memory usage low for applications that don't require more than 4 gigs of ram.
amd64 == x86_64
And the rest of those are Intel/AMD designations up to to SSE2 (P4) Not sure why they have that many different versions.
Itanic:
ia64 - Nuff said
IBM/Others PowerPC:
ppc64 ppciseries ppc64iseries ppcpseries ppc64p7 ppc64pseries ppc ppc8260 ppc32dy4 ppc8560
32 and 64 bit variants of PowerPC, dating from 90s era Macs to today.
IBM S390:
s390 s390x
Some sort of mainframe/large workstation systems I think. Not sure if the supported models are all PPC derived or not. I believe they run a different microcode layer on top of the cpus intended for mainframe use. Also run a hypervisor(or equivalent) above linux (and predating hypervisor capabilities in x86 by many years.)
Hope that helps! Check wikipedia for further info. They have rather comprehensive articles on all of these!