On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 03:54:21PM +0200, Ben Hutchings wrote: > On Sat, 2022-07-16 at 06:23 +0300, Adrian Bunk wrote: > > On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 01:51:21PM +0200, Ben Hutchings wrote: >... > > This is not limited to i386, it is also quite relevant for embedded arm > > where new products using 32-bit cpus are still being developed today. > > New products can build user-space with 64-bit time_t. They don't have > Debian's ABI constraints. >...
Many people want to use Debian in embedded, and there are people who would like to have a Debian release architecture that is armhf with 64-bit time_t. Not sure whether anyone will actually do the effort, but this is the most likely 32-bit release architecture we will still have after 2038. > > > This is not to say that i386, or 32-bit architectures, should be > > > dropped as a whole. We've supported installing a 64-bit kernel on i386 > > > since etch, though it now requires adding amd64 as a foreign > > > architecture. I do think that at some time soon we should stop > > > releasing kernel binaries or an installer for i386. > > > > Speaking with my i386 porter head on, I would rather ask for moving i386 > > to ports than dropping all support for i386 hardware. > > I think we have the following use cases for i386 now: > > 1. PCs with 64-bit CPUs, with i386 as the primary Debian architecture. > This might be the result of keeping an i386 installation through > hardware upgrades. > 2. PCs with 64-bit CPUs, that need to run i386 binaries that can't be > rebuilt for amd64 (proprietary, or unportable). They might have > either amd64 or i386 as the primary Debian architecture. > 3. PCs with 32-bit CPUs. > > Moving i386 to ports would clearly serve use case 3 better than > dropping the kernel and installer. Keeping i386 as a release > architecture, but without a kernel and installer, seems to serve use > cases 1 and 2 better. > > What's not clear is how many users fall into each of these use cases. >... What problem is building i386 bookworm kernel binaries causing for you that are not present on other architectures like armhf or s390x? > Ben. cu Adrian
