A Proposal To Go 64-bit Only With Fedora 23

[Adarion]

Don't kill x86_32!

1. There are still a lot of good 32 bit x86 machines around.
2. There is a plethora of 32 bit software around.
Actually I had a recompile of a system these days to support Gentoo multilib. It was neccessary due to a mesa version in the precompiled 32 bit compatibility libs that was too old.
But I noticed how much software (especially binary stuff) makes use of these 32bit libs. So if you'd kill off 32bit now tons of software would stop to run. And people are arguing that "Linux isn't a platform" cause you can't get commercial software to run on it. This move would not improve the situation.

[Kivada]

"die already" - well thank you very much, my atom netbook with 2GB of ram works still pretty ok today :-P. Same thing for numerous late pentium4 era machines - with memory upgrades they are pretty usable web browsing computers still. With lightweight desktops these computers can easily have a second life.

I'm ok with not advertising 32bit x86 versions of distros, but it's still too early to get rid of them entirely.

For $60+/-$5 you would be able to replace the desktop systems with a low end and low power APU system that would be faster in all respects and use far less power and produce far less heat.

As to your old netbook, theres always Puppy.

[Kivada]

Don't kill x86_32!

1. There are still a lot of good 32 bit x86 machines around.
2. There is a plethora of 32 bit software around.
Actually I had a recompile of a system these days to support Gentoo multilib. It was neccessary due to a mesa version in the precompiled 32 bit compatibility libs that was too old.
But I noticed how much software (especially binary stuff) makes use of these 32bit libs. So if you'd kill off 32bit now tons of software would stop to run. And people are arguing that "Linux isn't a platform" cause you can't get commercial software to run on it. This move would not improve the situation.

Yes kill 32 bit, leave it to distro targeted toward low end or old hardware and free up resources for 64 bit.

[AJSB]

With the power consumption of P4 machines, wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a new system?

I think so....an Athlon 5350 ?
In special taking in account the work reported for what the P4 is used.

[Kano]

You still need 32 bit libs for multiarch, you can forget just one kernel, well if they think that kills too much time, does not matter for me

[robclark]

No, 32 bit ARM is largely useless as theres no drivers for any of the hardware and no comodity hardware.

I have a bunch of 32bit snapdragon boards that beg to differ (utilite2, ifc6410, ifc6540, ..)

I believe there have been some aarch64 arm community board(s) announced (and you can be sure there are more in the pipeline), but nothing that I know of which meets the price point of a "community board" exists yet for aarch64. That alone should be enough of a hint that dropping aarch32 at this point is somewhat premature.

[Mat2]

Many people simply can't afford buying a new system.
Linux is used not only in the developed world.

EDIT: And we may gain new users on low-end hardware that switch from WinXP.

EDIT2: I'm sitting on a 6 year old laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo) that is working really nice and I have no plans to switch in the nearest future.

[nanonyme]

Yes kill 32 bit, leave it to distro targeted toward low end or old hardware and free up resources for 64 bit.

Such a distro will exist anyway, Fedora's decision has nothing to do with it. Well, at least for a short time. Those running x86 should bloody get to their heads they're running on a dead architecture that's on extended zombie mode.

[SXX⁣]

Many people simply can't afford buying a new system.

But can afford to pay for old system power consumption? How is that possible?

[BSDude]

Many people simply can't afford buying a new system.
Linux is used not only in the developed world.

EDIT: And we may gain new users on low-end hardware that switch from WinXP.

EDIT2: I'm sitting on a 6 year old laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo) that is working really nice and I have no plans to switch in the nearest future.

And guess what...? Your Intel Core 2 Duo is 64bit! If referencing Wikipedia, the last 32bit processor made by Intel was of the Netburst Architecture in 2004. First 64bit processors appeared in 2003. I think a chip that's 12 years old wouldn't cost much nowadays, would it? Heck, we have boards coming out with descent specs that are sub-50$ price range. Your argument is dead in the water. Just wasted cycles on an architecture that should have been retired a whie ago.