Debian 12 is one of the last holdouts of 32-bit support if you’re like me and have some pretty old devices still kicking. Just a couple years left.
Originally I was an advocate for dropping 32-bit support, but now that getting newer devices is increasingly unaffordable… I actually think it might be a good idea to reverse course on that just a little and keep 32-blt support for just a little longer. At least until after the AI bubble finally fucking pops.
I started using 32 bit stuff after experiencing how they tend to be much lighter on memory. A 32 bit os can make a 2~4gb machine very usable. I even find myself thinking if changing everything to 64 bits was really necessary
There is the x32 ABI that tried to have that 64bit cake and eat it too, but it didn’t catch on, probably for good reasons. Gentoo still allows you to run it on modern hardware in case you want to try it out.
Debian 12 is one of the last holdouts of 32-bit support if you’re like me and have some pretty old devices still kicking. Just a couple years left.
Originally I was an advocate for dropping 32-bit support, but now that getting newer devices is increasingly unaffordable… I actually think it might be a good idea to reverse course on that just a little and keep 32-blt support for just a little longer. At least until after the AI bubble finally fucking pops.
I started using 32 bit stuff after experiencing how they tend to be much lighter on memory. A 32 bit os can make a 2~4gb machine very usable. I even find myself thinking if changing everything to 64 bits was really necessary
There is the x32 ABI that tried to have that 64bit cake and eat it too, but it didn’t catch on, probably for good reasons. Gentoo still allows you to run it on modern hardware in case you want to try it out.
I can wholeheartedly recommend NetBSD if you want rock solid and eternally dependable backward compatibility forever.
This was me, pulling out an old netbook trying to figure out which distro it could still run. 🫤
There are still distros that support 32-bit besides Debian 12, like Alpine and Void. Until when, that’s unknown.
What all 32 bit stuff do you need to replace?
I tried to re-use a phone for some command line stuff.
There’s a lot of arm 32 stuff that’s not working, so it makes it much more difficult