Hello,
On Tue, Aug 20, 2024 at 03:44:03AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 08/19/2024 02:51 PM, Andy Smith wrote:
> > [32-bit x86] as previously mentioned has a single digit of years
> > of remaining lifetime in Debian.
>
> I don't see anything on https://wiki.debian.org/LTS that implies shorter
> lifetime for i386 than anything else.
The LTS page covers lifetimes for things currently released in
Debian whereas I am talking about the expected release architectures
for future Debian releases and their support lifetimes.
The plans for the next release of Debian ("trixie") some time in
2025 do not include installer support for 32-bit x86 or a 32-bit x86
kernel, so the lifetime for a 32-bit kernel in Debian is now
bookworm plus the 5 years of its LTS. The expected long term route
to run 32-bit x86 software on Debian is on a 64-bit kernel.
As a result anything you install as 32-bit x86 now has no upgrade
path and quite limited support future. A 64-bit install has a more
promising future as the running of 32-bit packages is still planned
to be supported for quite a while to come.
Then there is the fact that the LTS team can and does mark packages
as unsupportable for the lifetime of LTS when they need to, so just
because LTS team exists doesn't mean they can get around to
supporting 32-bit x86 installer/kernel. I would not be at all
surprised if they gave up on it before the end of bookworm LTS.
Note also that the email that Andrew Cater linked to was very
careful in its wording. When it said, "Insofar as they still do, we
anticipate that the kernel, d-i and images teams will cease to
support i386 in the near future" — this is your clue that very few
people are actually supporting this *right now*. Indeed, one¹ reason
why 32-bit x86 support is being dropped (everywhere) isn't because
no one wants it or no one uses it, but because (close to) no one in
the upstream Linux kernel and toolchain community is *supporting*
it, which leads to it being unsupportable in Debian. Already, and
for a number of years before now.
Debian Release Managers decide what meets the grade for a release
architecture:
https://release.debian.org/testing/arch_qualify.html
32-bit x86 is a really bad idea for new installs on hardware that
can do amd64, and has been for a long time.
Thanks,
Andy
¹ The other big one for Debian is the inability to build some big
32-bit x86 packages on native 32-bit x86 build hosts due to the
limited address space. Building them on amd64 would work but I
don't think it's seen as a priority.
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
