On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 11:02:56AM +0100, Aoife Moloney via devel-announce
wrote:
> Wiki - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Drop_i686_support
> Discussion thread -
> https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f43-change-proposal-drop-i686-support-system-wide/156324
This is very problematic not just for the gaming stuff, but also for
compilers.
If gcc in the distro is supposed to have x86_64 compiler that has at
least some minimal -m32 support (which at least various bootloaders or
the kernel need), then it needs various i686 libraries in the buildroot,
otherwise it needs to be built with --disable-multilib and in that case
it can compile stuff with -m32, but won't really have any 32-bit crt files,
libgcc.a and the like.
In the way that gcc rpms are currently built in Fedora (both x86_64 and i686
builds with some subpackages typically installed from x86_64 only (compiler
proper) and others for one or both multilibs (library subpackages)), the
need for 32-bit ELF objects in 64-bit builds is fairly limited - we get
away (or did, haven't watched closely what has been done there on the
glibc side) mostly with glibc32 package which provided a few 32-bit
libraries, so that the multilib support in the compiler isn't disabled and
e.g. crt files/libgcc can be built, other libraries are mostly taken
from the i686 build, but there we require a lot of stuff, e.g. to get
documentation built (TeX, texinfo, doxygen, ...).
If i686 rpms are gone altogether and some 32-bit ELF objects/libraries
are provided in x86_64.rpm packages, then we'd need significantly more than
just glibc and a few other libraries, e.g. gmp, mpfr, libmpc, zlib
to name just a few. Some of those can be built in-tree which might be ok
for package build.
And there is another aspect, Fedora being used often as a distribution used
by developers working on compilers and other parts of toolchain. Not having
at least basic 32-bit libraries will be a major blocker. And not just for
GCC/LLVM/GDB etc. developers, but also for people working on other compilers
like EDG that raised concerns about this proposal and there could be many
users migrating away from Fedora which no longer provides what the users
need.
Note, I'm fine with adding various ExcludeArch: i686 to non-library packages
which aren't needed and/or trying to shrink dependencies of i686 packages
still built. E.g. in the gcc case, I think it would be just fine for i686
build to disable documentation and thus no longer require TeX, doxygen etc.
But shrinking the set to zero will not serve the distro well.
Jakub
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