OpenMandriva Is Going To Do Away With 32-bit Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: OpenMandriva Is Going To Do Away With 32-bit Support

Following in the steps of Ubuntu 17.10 dropping 32-bit desktop images and other Linux distributions also lessening their focus on 32-bit support, OpenMandriva has issued its final i586 release...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OpenMandriva-Dropping-32-bit

[Adarion]

God bless Gentoo. (Even with sometimes stupid perl updates, icu updates (and esp. following rebuilds...) and the likes.) Where it's all about choice. Gentoo probably runs on nearly as many architectures as NetBSD. I can understand that a lot of distributions feel they lack the manpower to do thorough checking and QA for architectures that aren't that much in use any longer. Still, there are plenty of x86_32 machines out there and they still do the job nicely. Moreover, many esp. embedded x86 do a job that never needs >4 GiB RAM. And there are machines that are energy efficient enough to not be replaced (not talking about P4 heating plates).
So I'm really glad there are still (meta)distributions out there that still support these machines.

E.g. also there was/is a project "old, but safe", but you can hardly call that if you're forced to run ancient SW on it. Or "Linux 4 Africa" - they collected elderly computers (but not crap, mind ya!) refurbished them, put a recent Linux on top and sent them to schools in Africa and conducted introductory courses for theachers and pupils. Generally there might still be enough x86_32 around so it's worth to support it. (It's not like these are actually rare 8086 ones...)

[rudregues]

Besides Gentoo, we have Debian too.

[phoronix38]

I am using OpenMandriva Lx3 from time to time and it is the smoothest speed wise distribution I have used but why would they say the following in their announcement?

"Then your computer time can be filled with things like “Gee Whiz ain’t that amazing!” and of course on the odd occasion “Gee Whiz why the $%^*& did that stop working it worked last week?”"

This can make people think of them as less serious when joking about the system not always working well.

[andyprough]

rudregues

Besides Gentoo, we have Debian too.

And openSUSE Tumbleweed.

[R41N3R]

32 bit support can be provided from some specialized distributions, so I welcome this step of OpenMandriva.

[starshipeleven]

Still, there are plenty of x86_32 machines out there

Only if you count embedded, which is 99% of the times running its own firmware anyway, not OpenMandriva.

and they still do the job nicely.

Not likely, not with modern programs anyway. Embedded still have the same firmware, but we are talking of touchscreen interfaces in industrial applications, ATMs and similar stuff where it is still running the same stuff it always ran since it was deployed.

Moreover, many esp. embedded x86 do a job that never needs >4 GiB RAM.

Embedded isn't running OpenMandriva, but their own firmware.
Freedomized embedded boards are running Alpine Linux or OpenWRT/LEDE, and there it's all fine and good for i386 and even Geodes (subset of i386 very very common in old embedded).

And there are machines that are energy efficient enough to not be replaced (not talking about P4 heating plates).

Embedded only (i.e. Geodes), everything else that is 32-bit only runs like shit as a PC, so not OpenMandriva's target anyway. (yes I include Atom crappy processors)

E.g. also there was/is a project "old, but safe", but you can hardly call that if you're forced to run ancient SW on it. Or "Linux 4 Africa" - they collected elderly computers (but not crap, mind ya!) refurbished them, put a recent Linux on top and sent them to schools in Africa and conducted introductory courses for theachers and pupils. Generally there might still be enough x86_32 around so it's worth to support it. (It's not like these are actually rare 8086 ones...)

I'll just leave this here as personal opinion (as I can't speak on behalf of the rest of the world):

Most stuff I take from customers for electronics trash disposal (we take back old PC/networking stuff/similar due to laws requiring it) is some socket 775 P4 that is 64-bit capable.
And they still run like total garbage on anything that isn't specialized for old PCs like Puppy Linux, Tiny Core, Slitaz or whatever.

[brent]

This is getting a bit ridiculous. PCs incapable of x86_64 are too slow for any desktop use nowadays, while consuming lots of power. You're not doing people in some of the poor regions of Africa any favors by sending hardware that is unusable in practice.

Also, keep in mind, x86_64 was introduced *14 years ago*. As far as computing is concerned, that's an eternity! I can guarantee you that pretty much all of the hardware that people are throwing out these days is capable of x86_64 - and most of these systems will be dual-cores and quad-cores even.

[wizard69]

gentoo is free to do what they want but it come a point where supporting old hardware is a waste of energy. Here im talking energy in two forms. One being the human effort the other being electrical power. Im especially concerned with electrical power as a tiny embedded board can often run on one tenth the power of old 32 bit system while offering fulll 64 bit support.

I dont consider myself to be an environmentalist nut case but do respect where we live. The power usage profiles of old Intel systems is pathetic. I dont see a good reason to move these platforms into common duties old hardware is often graduste too such as always on servers.

In other words it is about time.

God bless Gentoo. (Even with sometimes stupid perl updates, icu updates (and esp. following rebuilds...) and the likes.) Where it's all about choice. Gentoo probably runs on nearly as many architectures as NetBSD. I can understand that a lot of distributions feel they lack the manpower to do thorough checking and QA for architectures that aren't that much in use any longer. Still, there are plenty of x86_32 machines out there and they still do the job nicely. Moreover, many esp. embedded x86 do a job that never needs >4 GiB RAM. And there are machines that are energy efficient enough to not be replaced (not talking about P4 heating plates).
So I'm really glad there are still (meta)distributions out there that still support these machines.

E.g. also there was/is a project "old, but safe", but you can hardly call that if you're forced to run ancient SW on it. Or "Linux 4 Africa" - they collected elderly computers (but not crap, mind ya!) refurbished them, put a recent Linux on top and sent them to schools in Africa and conducted introductory courses for theachers and pupils. Generally there might still be enough x86_32 around so it's worth to support it. (It's not like these are actually rare 8086 ones...)

[Adarion]

I dont consider myself to be an environmentalist nut case but do respect where we live. The power usage profiles of old Intel systems is pathetic. I dont see a good reason to move these platforms into common duties old hardware is often graduste too such as always on servers.
In other words it is about time.

I currently on my way but I'd like to add a few thoughts.
Yes, you're right. But as I wrote: Not talking about P4 heating plates. Or the old Athlon C for that matter. I am running some VIA C7/Eden stuff, AMD Geodes, Transmeta and the likes. So those are low power machines.
A second one: We had a "scrappage bonus" some years ago here in the country. It was meant that you'd receive some money / support by the state (so ... tax money in the end) if you'd wreck your ("dirty"??) old car and buy a new one. Well. The result was that I was on a wreckyard once to get a "new" mirror for my then 20 year old car. I saw tons of near-new cars there. "Why... what... they didn't have a crash, why are all these cars here?" I asked. "Scrappage bonus!" was the answer.
If you consider the energy that is used to make a new car vs. the 0.5 liters fuel that it consumes less (or even more (+0.5 l !)because motors get even more powerful than anyone really needs), then you got to run the run car for a long time to get that energy back in by fuel savings. As a scientist of nature we got to consider all these parts in the equation.
My car is very old, but received all sorts of even strict environmental awards back in the days. So I think it sometimes is environmentally responsible to drive an old car than to create something new every 2 years and throw the old away.
By the way: A lot of (at least European) electronic waste goes straight to Africa, and creates all sorts of troubles there. Recycling would be nice if someone would really do it. We German sort our waste with meticulous care but if the waste enterprises then throw all of it together to burn it or sell it as "raw material" by the ton to African countries... Pffff.

I know x86_32 is older than 2 years. But I guess you get my point. It really depends on the arch. I think the mentioned low power ones are still good to run, everything else should be replaced by some modern CPU/APU. E.g. I wouldn't buy a system w. x86_32 only for productive use these days. (didn't do so for years)