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Fedora 27 Might Do Away With 32-Bit Kernel Builds

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  • #11
    Originally posted by stevenc View Post
    The computer *industry* prefers we throw old hardware on the scrap-pile, so its employees will not be paid any more to maintain 32-bit kernels.
    I haven't heard any news of x86 32bit disappearing from linux kernel. Please don't conflate this over the top.

    There's an ever-widening niche for an operating system that would keep old hardware useful and so avoid having to pay for new hardware to be produced, and shipped (and the many costs of disposing of the old).
    Wrong, the same distros aimed at keeping alive ancient crap are still fine now, as ancient crap didn't change in the meantime.
    Fedora was never about that, so let's not make wild cries if it drops ancient crap.

    686-class EeePC with 1GB RAM (still available to buy used)
    Athlon K7 desktops?
    Intel Pentium-4 PCs?
    Intel Celeron(P6/Netburst) laptops?
    Puppy Linux (various flavors), Slitaz are the ones I'd use if I was really really forced to use those things with a GUI.
    Note that most netbooks could have their ram upgraded to 2 GB and in most cases it is very worth it.

    Also SSDs. Cheap used SSDs instead of whatever junk hard drives they had originally. They do wonders.

    AMD Geode 586+CMOV (686-compatible) (available in bulk, pre-owned)
    486-class embedded systems (still produced today)
    Intel Pentium-III servers?
    LEDE/OpenWRT is great on these things (I have a bunch of old Geodes around doing home automation duties), sure it is only for headless jobs, but as long as the device has more than 32MB of RAM and 8 MB of storage somewhere then it will run on it. Has a nice web interface and all.
    Also Alpine Linux (albeit it is a bit more difficult to configure/use).

    It really pays off to have a IDE-to-CF adapter so you can place the OS/firmware on that instead than on total crap IDE drives that you can use for data or whatever else where their low performance isn't an issue.

    Of course most industrial Geode boards have a CF slot already, then you can use them like a pro.

    I think Debian cannot run XFCE+Firefox with less than 1GB RAM nowadays.
    Running any kind of modern user-facing program is becoming more and more difficult with 1GB of RAM. Puppy and slitaz fare better than most, but modern browsers need a lot of RAM, and the lack of hw acceleration + crappy processor means that browsing will NOT be pleasant.

    Heck it's not plesant on far newer (laptop low end) hardware like AMD E1 APUs.
    Last edited by starshipeleven; 12 July 2017, 10:55 AM.

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    • #12
      Originally posted by eydee View Post
      It's fine. Those exotic x86-only computers that still exist can't properly run Gnome anyway. And that's the main flavor of Fedora, isn't it?
      You know what spins are? Just because shnome is default fedora de doesn't mean everyone is its fan. A de made with a toilet paper and duct tape would still be better than this castrated pseudo de.

      "Oh, you need access to some settings? You need a tweak tool. Missing some basic feature? Install a plugin!"
      Gnome? No, thanks.

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      • #13
        Damn! I've installed Fedora 26 xfce in my 32bit only laptop with core duo CPU, just two months ago (yeah core duo is 32bit only, core2 duo was 64bit...).

        I believe what matters isn't that Fedora is bleeding edge. Both Fedora and arch (which also drops 32bit on November) run better on weak hardware than Ubuntu does (assuming the same Desktop Environment). So, I really wish that they keep 32bit for just a bit longer. Otherwise, I will have to install Xubuntu again (I don't like Debian).

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        • #14
          Even if the distros stop supporting 32bit, there is always:
          git clone program_git_repo
          cd program_git_repo_master
          ./configure
          make -O3
          make install(or sudo make install, if you prefer)

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          • #15
            I have to wonder what took them so long! Supporting these old 32 bit platforms is a waste of time on a forward looking distro like Fedora. Ive never seen any body reaching for Fedora to bring up ancient hardware. Beyond that these old i86 machines are power hungry to the extreme, as somebody has already mentioned a Raspberry PI can often out perform the old boxes for a fraction of the power costs. Frankly the environmental issues surrounding powering old hardware ought to be enough to get people off old hardware.

            The next related issue id that even the low end world is going 64 bits with many 64 bit ARM based cards being marketed. The world is changing fast and in a couple of years i would expect all the old 32 bit hardware to be gone. This includes the likes of Raspberry PI, ODroid and others serving the single board computer market. Right now this market is in transition but i fully expect an eventually complete transition to 64 bit hardware. So there is really no future for 32 bit support in this world either.

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            • #16
              Anyone who needs to run an old x86 machine should really be using a specialized distro anyway, not generic Fedora.

              DO IT!

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              • #17
                Originally posted by eggbert View Post
                Old pentium 3 and 4s should be scrapped. It cost more to run these old machines. Why even bother when you can buy a $30 raspberry pi that outperforms these old clunkers while using a small percentage of the power consumption.
                Raspi doesn't do x86, so it wouldn't work as you suggest. It is admittedly becoming a niche use case, but yes there is plenty of embedded 32 bit x86 out there. Most bank ATM machines are still in 2017 mainly 32 bit x86 running Windows XP. Same with a lot of the industrial, manufacturing, automation, etc.

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                • #18
                  Originally posted by stevenc View Post
                  The computer *industry* prefers we throw old hardware on the scrap-pile, so its employees will not be paid any more to maintain 32-bit kernels. There's an ever-widening niche for an operating system that would keep old hardware useful and so avoid having to pay for new hardware to be produced, and shipped (and the many costs of disposing of the old).

                  So what are good options to make use of:

                  686-class EeePC with 1GB RAM (still available to buy used)
                  AMD Geode 586+CMOV (686-compatible) (available in bulk, pre-owned)
                  486-class embedded systems (still produced today)
                  Athlon K7 desktops?
                  Intel Pentium-4 PCs?
                  Intel Celeron(P6/Netburst) laptops?
                  Intel Pentium-III servers?

                  OpenBSD comes to mind. I think Debian cannot run XFCE+Firefox with less than 1GB RAM nowadays.
                  In the free software world, do not throw anything away, do you want 32-bit support? No one keeps you from pursuing it, are not you capable? Pay someone to do it. Do not expect others to do it by divine grace!

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                  • #19
                    Originally posted by DebianXFCE Jr View Post

                    You know what spins are? Just because shnome is default fedora de doesn't mean everyone is its fan. A de made with a toilet paper and duct tape would still be better than this castrated pseudo de.

                    "Oh, you need access to some settings? You need a tweak tool. Missing some basic feature? Install a plugin!"
                    Gnome? No, thanks.
                    Spins are not equally supported. Show me a spin that has wayland support.

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                    • #20
                      Originally posted by torsionbar28 View Post
                      Raspi doesn't do x86, so it wouldn't work as you suggest. It is admittedly becoming a niche use case, but yes there is plenty of embedded 32 bit x86 out there.
                      And x86 is requred on such hardware because?
                      Most bank ATM machines are still in 2017 mainly 32 bit x86 running Windows XP. Same with a lot of the industrial, manufacturing, automation, etc.
                      And such stuff needs to be updated because? Any access to that stuff happens through VPN or comes from internal network, they never touch the Internet.

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