Re: About i386 support

From	Ansgar 🙀 <ansgar@43-1.org>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.devel
Subject	Re: About i386 support
Date	2024-05-20 13:50 +0200
Message-ID	<IG9GG-eCxn-11@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
References	<IFQNH-er5S-23@gated-at.bofh.it>
Organization	linux.* mail to news gateway

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Hi,

On Sun, 2024-05-19 at 10:30 -0500, rhys@neoquasar.org wrote:
> I have an N270 system I can use to contribute, if someone is willing
> to explain what I need to do to make it useful. 
> 
> From: Victor Gamper <victor@wenzeslaus.de>
> Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2024 08:03
> To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: About i386 support
> 
> I believe I could swap out the processor on my T60,
> however, I'd both need to have that processor and
> make sure that it is actually possible. It still would
> not really make sense on a platform that only supports
> 3G of physical RAM.
> 
> Anyways, if the only reason why i386 cd images are not
> supported anymore is the lack of contributors,
> I'd be willing to contribute in that area, if it's possible.

If you look at https://release.debian.org/testing/arch_qualify.html
there is at least several things that can be done:

1. Add CPU security mitigations to Linux kernel.
2. Address builds reaching address limit. There were ideas to use
foreign-arch (amd64) compilers to do so.
3. Look at other arch-specific issues (porter); this can also include
baseline violations and other issues for real i386 hardware.

It is also possible to work on finding funding and asking someone else
to do this. I've no idea how much that would cost, but let's say a few
10k USD.

Which leads to the problem: most people who want this, seem to want to
continue to use old hardware (T60, N270). However, continuing to
support i386 has likely costs much higher than the replacement cost of
said hardware... Which is probably why nobody really seems sufficiently
motivated to actually invest resources. (Or do you?)

Ansgar

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Re: About i386 support Ansgar 🙀 <ansgar@43-1.org> - 2024-05-20 13:50 +0200
  Re: About i386 support Paul Gevers <elbrus@debian.org> - 2024-05-20 22:20 +0200
    Re: About i386 support Leandro Cunha <leandrocunha016@gmail.com> - 2024-05-20 22:30 +0200
      Re: About i386 support Andrey Rakhmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2024-05-20 23:20 +0200
        Re: About i386 support Leandro Cunha <leandrocunha016@gmail.com> - 2024-05-21 00:20 +0200
          Re: About i386 support Andrey Rakhmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2024-05-21 08:40 +0200
            Re: About i386 support Leandro Cunha <leandrocunha016@gmail.com> - 2024-05-21 10:40 +0200

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