Re: Arch qualification for bookworm: call for DSA, Security, toolchain concerns
On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 03:54:21PM +0200, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Sat, 2022-07-16 at 06:23 +0300, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 01:51:21PM +0200, Ben Hutchings wrote:
>...
> > This is not limited to i386, it is also quite relevant for embedded arm
> > where new products using 32-bit cpus are still being developed today.
>
> New products can build user-space with 64-bit time_t. They don't have
> Debian's ABI constraints.
>...
Many people want to use Debian in embedded, and there are people
who would like to have a Debian release architecture that is armhf
with 64-bit time_t.
Not sure whether anyone will actually do the effort, but this is the
most likely 32-bit release architecture we will still have after 2038.
> > > This is not to say that i386, or 32-bit architectures, should be
> > > dropped as a whole. We've supported installing a 64-bit kernel on i386
> > > since etch, though it now requires adding amd64 as a foreign
> > > architecture. I do think that at some time soon we should stop
> > > releasing kernel binaries or an installer for i386.
> >
> > Speaking with my i386 porter head on, I would rather ask for moving i386
> > to ports than dropping all support for i386 hardware.
>
> I think we have the following use cases for i386 now:
>
> 1. PCs with 64-bit CPUs, with i386 as the primary Debian architecture.
> This might be the result of keeping an i386 installation through
> hardware upgrades.
> 2. PCs with 64-bit CPUs, that need to run i386 binaries that can't be
> rebuilt for amd64 (proprietary, or unportable). They might have
> either amd64 or i386 as the primary Debian architecture.
> 3. PCs with 32-bit CPUs.
>
> Moving i386 to ports would clearly serve use case 3 better than
> dropping the kernel and installer. Keeping i386 as a release
> architecture, but without a kernel and installer, seems to serve use
> cases 1 and 2 better.
>
> What's not clear is how many users fall into each of these use cases.
>...
What problem is building i386 bookworm kernel binaries causing for you
that are not present on other architectures like armhf or s390x?
> Ben.
cu
Adrian
Reply to: