Re: Arch qualification for bookworm: call for DSA, Security, toolchain concerns

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@debian.org>]

On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 02:02:34PM +0200, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Sat, 2022-07-16 at 18:03 +0300, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>...
> > What problem is building i386 bookworm kernel binaries causing for you 
> > that are not present on other architectures like armhf or s390x?
> 
> Good question.  I think the problem is that those i386 binaries will
> mostly work on 64-bit PCs and users will wrongly expect that they are
> fully supported.  But various features aren't implemented (in the
> kernel) or aren't available (architecturally) to a 32-bit kernel on a
> 64-bit CPU.
> 
> I suppose this can be mostly dealt with by sticking warnings around the
> place:
> 
> - Installation manual for i386
> - Release notes for i386
> - Package installation (debconf)
> - Kernel boot (log and taint flag)

We are in full agreement that hardware that can run a 64-bit kernel 
should not use a 32-bit kernel.

"mostly work" also applies to i386 userspace that is also slowly 
crumbling away, I assume noone will disagree that amd64 userspace
should be the preferred option when running a 64-bit kernel
(but crossgrading might be problematic).

Raising awareness for these is good.

> Ben.

cu
Adrian