Debian Likely Moving Away From i386 In The Near Future

theshatterstone54 , 6 months ago

TLDR: Debian will stop producing 32-bit iso installer images. You can still use 32-bit applications. This will stop you from installing the newest version of Debian on a 32-bit processor. That’s all.

Catsrules , 6 months ago

Can someone explain like I am 5?

Is just just talking about 32bit processor support? Or are we also talking about 32 bit programs as well?

eutampieri , 6 months ago

The first

Catsrules , 6 months ago

Thanks

eutampieri , 6 months ago

☺️

makingStuffForFun , 6 months ago

Will that mean a bunch of my steam games won’t work? Please don’t say that, as I love debian, and I love my games.

NamelessGO , 6 months ago

Games aren’t being affected with this change

Patch , 6 months ago

No, this is just about the kernel and the installer/images.

You won’t be able to install Debian on an x86-32 computer anymore, but everything you can currently do on an x86-64 install still continue to work.

IsThisLoss , 6 months ago

No

Aggravationstation , 6 months ago

I’ve always kept a 32 bit Debian ISO on my Ventoy drive just in case.

Would be a shame if they stopped supporting it but I’d put dyne:bolic on my drive which was the first distro I ever used.

mactan , 6 months ago

32bit*

Static_Rocket , 6 months ago

Lol, the nomenclature has always been a bit scuffed. Do you refer to desktop 64bit as x86_64 or amd64? (There’s history behind those…)

Patch , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

Yeah, I mean if you want to get picky, the actual i386 processor family hasn’t been supported by the Linux kernel since 2012, and was dropped by Debian in 2007.

Most people were generally not particularly affected by that, seeing as the last i386 chip was released in (I think) 1989!

Debian’s choice to refer to the whole x86-32 line as i386 has always been a weird historical quirk.

spider , 6 months ago

Debian’s choice to refer to the whole x86-32 line as i386 has always been a weird historical quirk.

Indeed; there’s also this announcement from 2016.

lukas , 6 months ago

None of the above. 64-bit, 64 bit, x86-64, 1000000 bit, amd or i772.