Debian appears to have dropped 32 bit kernel builds

[j2mcgreg]

I’ve read this entire thread and there’s one aspect of progress that the responders so far have ignored. People age and retire. I think that a big problem for the major distros is that people in their 32 bit divisions are retiring out of the organization and there aren’t enough replacements available to carry on with the work. Do colleges and universities even teach 32 bit architecture any more except as a history lesson? I also think that it’s likely that the top level distros have established lower thresholds for 32 bit downloads IE when the number of 32 bit ISO downloads consistently fall below the threshold, production will cease.

[Adrian]

Other than some old Intel Atom that is present in some OLD netbooks (and I'm sorry for those people who use those, they cannot even do full-screen Youtube without the fan screaming bloody murder and dropping 20% of the frames), what CPUs do you run that requires 32bit OS?

[lars_the_bear]

... what CPUs do you run that requires 32bit OS?

Outside of retro-computing, I don't think there's much in the x86 world. I have some VIA SBCs that are interesting because truly fanless x86 boards were (probably still are) quite rare. These things were made for point-of-sale terminals and similar. Probably they were designed to run Windows originally.

As I said, there's a natural inclination to think in terms of desktop/laptop computers, but there are many SBCs made for industrial applications, that typically don't have up-to-the-minute CPUs.

BR, Lars.

[Adrian]

We don't provide MX for POS terminals or for industrial applications.

[lars_the_bear]

We don't provide MX for POS terminals or for industrial applications.

I doubt anybody is expecting you to.

My point is simply that the assumption that there are no applications for 32-bit operating systems is incorrect. Such applications do exist, and there are probably more of them than you might think, if you mostly focus on desktop systems.

BR, Lars.

[Stevo]

... what CPUs do you run that requires 32bit OS?

Outside of retro-computing, I don't think there's much in the x86 world. I have some VIA SBCs that are interesting because truly fanless x86 boards were (probably still are) quite rare. These things were made for point-of-sale terminals and similar. Probably they were designed to run Windows originally.

As I said, there's a natural inclination to think in terms of desktop/laptop computers, but there are many SBCs made for industrial applications, that typically don't have up-to-the-minute CPUs.

BR, Lars.

What percentage of those are using Intel x386 instead of 32-bit ARM by now, though? My $15 el-cheapo smartwatch may be more powerful than my first desktop (why, yes, I am old).

[Jerry3904]

What seems to me missing from this thread is the significant presence of MX users who may not have the same level of disposable funds as the MX Devs, for instance.

[Germ]

What seems to me missing from this thread is the significant presence of MX users who may not have the same level of disposable funds as the MX Devs, for instance.

Well, I am one of those but all my hardware is 64bit. Even my old Acer Aspire 5315 is 64bit at 16 years old.

[oops]

In this case, for x32 PCs; Debian Extended LTS by Freexian can help (and for the kernel antix or MX x32 kernels may be an alternative too, or a custom vanilla x32 kernel compilation)

see here:
viewtopic.php?t=81116

https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Extended
https://www.freexian.com/lts/extended/

Debian 7 “Wheezy” i386, amd64 from 2018-06-01 to 2020-06-30
Debian 8 “Jessie” i386, amd64, armhf, armel from 2020-07-01 to 2025-06-30
MX17- Debian 9 “Stretch” i386, amd64, armhf from 2022-07-01 to 2027-06-30
MX19 - Debian 10 “Buster” i386, amd64, armhf, arm64 from 2024-07-01 to 2029-06-30
MX21- Debian 11 “Bullseye” i386, amd64, ...? from 2026-09-01 to 2031-06-30
MX23 - Debian 12 “Bookworm” i386, amd64, ...? from 2028-07-01 to 2033-06-30

[Adrian]

What seems to me missing from this thread is the significant presence of MX users who may not have the same level of disposable funds as the MX Devs, for instance.

I doubt people cannot find hardware that companies started to dispose off at least 15 years ago (I know we were disposing of stuff with Intel Core Duo about that time). I'm not telling people to dumpster dive, but you can get stuff for $20-$35 that runs on 64-bit BETTER than anything you might have that is 32-bit-only. I mean even a Raspberry PI previous version can run 64-bit and you can get it brand new for $35, I'm sure you can find some cheaper from people who want to upgrade to Pi5 -- I know those are ARM-based, but it's just an example.

Also... if you still don't want to upgrade, continue to use Bookwork, or use antiX or other specialty OS, I just don't think MX should continue to provide 32-bit builds in the future, it's not "cost free", if nothing else it takes time and space to build and space on our servers and mirrors and it complicate things from support point of view.