Luca Boccassi wrote:
>On Fri, 19 May 2023 at 12:42, Steve McIntyre <st...@einval.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm planning on stopping publishing installer images for i386
>> soon. Why? We should be strongly encouraging users to move away from
>> it as a main architecture. If they're still installing i386 on 64-bit
>> hardware, then that's a horrible mistake. If they're still running
>> i386 *hardware*, then they should be replacing that hardware with more
>> modern, more capable, more *efficient* stuff.
>>
>> As and when we switch i386 to a secondary status like this (however we
>> label it!), then I think we should *only* consider it as a
>> compatibility layer for older software. People *could* just use old
>> chroots or similar, but the need is likely to be around for a
>> while.
>
>+1 for stopping publishing installers for i386, it has been mentioned
>many times but it's always worth repeating: electricity costs to keep
>running i386 hardware are already way higher than what it costs to buy
>a cheap, low-power replacement like a raspberry pi, that also provides
>better performance.
Exactly.
>Just to clarify, by 'soon' here, do you mean for Bookworm too, or
>post-Bookworm?
We've already switched off i386 *live* images for Bookworm. Honestly,
we should probably have done that a while ago; IMHO they've not been
useful in some time.
I had been thinking about doing similar for installer images too, but
with other work going on too I think it got too late in the cycle to
make that change. My plan is therefore to ship i386 installer images
for bookworm as normal (including bookworm point releases going
forwards), but to disable those builds for testing/trixie ~immediately
after the release.
If people have strong opinions about that plan, let us know please.
--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. st...@einval.com
< sladen> I actually stayed in a hotel and arrived to find a post-it
note stuck to the mini-bar saying "Paul: This fridge and
fittings are the correct way around and do not need altering"
