Fedora Drops 32-Bit Linux

Brian Fagioli, writing for BetaNews: Beginning with the upcoming version 31 of the operating system, i686 32-bit processor support is being dropped by the Fedora Project. "The i686 architecture essentially entered community support with the Fedora 27 release. Unfortunately, there are not enough members of the community willing to do the work to maintain the architecture. Don't worry, though -- Fedora is not dropping all 32-bit packages. Many i686 packages are still being built to ensure things like multilib, wine, and Steam will continue to work," says Justin Forbes of Fedora Project. Forbes further explains, "While the repositories are no longer being composed and mirrored out, there is a koji i686 repository which works with mock for building 32-bit packages, and in a pinch to install 32-bit versions which are not part of the x86_64 multilib repository. Of course, maintainers expect this will see limited use. Users who simply need to run a 32-bit application should be able to do so with multilib on a 64-bit system."

Other distro

[fred6666]

I guess those running old computers as servers / embedded x86 boards will be running another distro anyways.
Fedora has always been desktop / big server oriented.

Re:Other distro

[KiloByte]

Not even that. Fedora's user base has nearly evaporated, making the distro merely an unstable branch of RHEL. It's RHEL/Centos what sees some serious use -- and that's big servers only. Not a big share by number of users, massive share by profit.

Re:Other distro

[caseih]

Fedora users have "evaporated?" Fedora is still a very popular distro, especially for those (yes they do exist) who like Gnome and want the latest shiny gnome stuff. Fedora is not just a development stream for RHEL. It really is its own community, and it's still quite popular.

Re:

[TheRealMindChild]

Yeah, Slackware too. There are tens of us

Re:

[Tough Love]

Heh, on a quick scan I saw those who "want the latest shitty gnome stuff". Sounds about right.

Re:

[samwichse]

Fedora user here.

I like Fedora because the KDE they distribute is very stable compared with other distros I've tried. They seem to do a very good job shaking out the bugs in Rawhide.

Fedora KDE spin for the win! :)

Sam

Re:

[IMightB]

I like fedora as well, and find that most people that bag on it are the type of people that like LED's on their case fans, racing fins on their Pintos, and like to program in fetlang.

Re: Other distro

[Frosty Piss]

Iâ(TM)ve used CentOS as my desktop for years, as has my Luddite wife, who seems to have no problems with it...

Re:

[Seven Spirals]

Personally, I've grown to hate Fedora over the years. If they aren't pimping the worst of Linux (DBUS, XML, GNOME, XDMCP-free Wayland, PulseAudio, NetworkManager) they are inventing newly offensive ways to foul up and corrode the former Unix philosophy core reflected in Linux. Fedora was the earlier adopter / canary in the coal mine for Systemd which is the last stop on the Fuck Linux For Good tour. Not that FreeBSD and others weren't already eating Linux's lunch in terms of superior design and features (an

Re:

[AHuxley]

Try Bodhi Linux http://www.bodhilinux.com/w/se... [bodhilinux.com] and the Legacy ISO image.
32 bit ready and no PAE extension.

At least there always is T2 to the rescue

[ReneR]

were all of those, and MIPS, SPARC, ... are still supported and you can even build your optimised flavour: https://t2sde.org/ [t2sde.org]

Please tell Microchip that

[bagofbeans]

MPLAB X still requires 32 bit compatibility libraries for 64 bit Linux install.

Multilib remains supported

[tepples]

MPLAB X still requires 32 bit compatibility libraries for 64 bit Linux install.

This should cause no problem. The summary quotes the announcement by Justin Forbes [fedoramagazine.org]:

Users who simply need to run a 32-bit application should be able to do so with multilib on a 64-bit system.

Thus there's no problem with running 32-bit software on a 64-bit kernel. This isn't like the situation with macOS "Catalina Wine Killer" or the roadmap that was briefly proposed for Ubuntu [slashdot.org], where the OS distributor would stop distributing the 32-bit libraries needed to run older proprietary applications.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows still supports 32 bit and even tablets coming out in 2019 run in 32 bit mode due to their 32 bit EFI.

You can boot 64bit Linux kernels with a 32bit EFI. You just need a 32bit grub installed. Not really a major issue. Debian supports this configuration out of the box since version 8.

https://wiki.debian.org/UEFI#Architectures_supported [debian.org]

Some systems have been released containing 64-bit Intel Atom CPUs (such as the Bay Trail), but unfortunately use 32-bit UEFI firmware with no BIOS compatibility mode. Using the 32-bit UEFI x86 support, an i386 installation should be possible on these machines but it won't ma

Re:

[tepples]

Does Funtoo provide a one-click or one-liner tool to build and install containers for Wine and Steam, or is each end user supposed to provide it himself, herself, or themself?

When is it dropping?

[Comboman]

Kinda confusing that "drops" is slang for both "releases" and "cancels".

Re:

[Sapwatso]

It is confusing, but this usage of "drops" came first and it doesn't seem fair to complain about that confusion when people use it this way.

Re:

[twocows]

I think most people familiar with the subject can context themselves through this one. In the general case, sure, it could be unclear.

Re:

[iCEBaLM]

When you drop something, you let go of it. It's not slang, Redhat is letting go of 32bit support.

Re:

[bill.pev]

I agree. I assumed they had already gone 32 bit. ABOUT TIME EH??





lol.

Re:

[demonlapin]

Saying that a product was a "bomb" means exactly opposite things in BrE and AmE, although saying that it "exploded" has the same meaning in both.

Re:

[tkotz]

in AmE, it reverses meaning on article alone "the bomb" vs "a bomb".