On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 04:40:38PM +0000, Peter Maydell wrote: > On Mon, 19 Feb 2024 at 16:26, Thomas Huth <th...@redhat.com> wrote: > > > > On 19/02/2024 16.53, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote: > > > On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 03:37:31PM +0000, Peter Maydell wrote: > > >> Our msys2 32-bit Windows host CI job has been failing recently > > >> because upstream MSYS2 are starting to phase out 32-bit windows > > >> host support and are steadily removing i686 versions of packages. > > >> The latest is dtc: > > >> https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues/2177 > > >> > > >> The writing is clearly on the wall for their 32-bit support, judging > > >> from the "2023-12-13 - Starting to drop some 32-bit Packages" news > > >> item at https://www.msys2.org/news/ and associated discussion at > > >> https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/discussions/19326 . > > >> > > >> QEMU on a 32-bit host is not likely to be a great experience, and I > > >> suspect we don't have many users using 32-bit Windows who couldn't > > >> use the 64-bit version instead. Our Download page points users at > > >> MSYS2's packages, and they have already dropped the 32-bit QEMU > > >> package build. Stefan Weil's binaries page, which is the other thing > > >> we link to from Download, has no 32-bit version newer than 7.2.0. > > >> So anybody using 32-bit Windows QEMU must be building it themselves. > > >> Plus, we've already deprecated system emulation on 32-bit x86 hosts, > > >> so the only remaining "supported" config is with the NVMM or WHPX > > >> accelerators. > > > > > > The other data point is that Win11 is 64-bit only, and IIUC, > > > Win10 was 64-bit only for new OEM installs too, only upgrades > > > or end user installs could choose 32-bit. > > > > Yes, and considering that there will likely be a Windows 12 at one point in > > time, we'll drop support for Win10 and thus 32-bit support anyway. > > > > >> I suggest that we should: > > >> > > >> * remove the msys2-32bit CI job entirely (we will still have at least > > >> compile-time coverage via the cross-win32-system job) > > >> * document that the 32-bit Windows support is deprecated in > > >> docs/about/build-platforms.rst and deprecated.rst > > >> * update our Download page to remove mention of 32-bit Windows > > >> > > >> Any objections? > > > > > > I think that's sane. > > > > Sounds good to me, too. > > > > Note that we already have an entry for "System emulation on 32-bit x86 > > hosts" in the deprecation list ... so IMHO we could also justify to drop the > > 32-bit Windows support immediately, since that's a subset of that entry. > > Mmm. I had initially misread that as only applying to TCG, > but it's more general than that. So I think I agree that we > should go ahead and mark 32-bit Windows support as definitively > dropped.
Technically our existing deprecation would still allow for 32-bit builds of qemu-img, qemu-io, etc tools, on Windows, but that's very niche. With regards, Daniel -- |: https://berrange.com -o- https://www.flickr.com/photos/dberrange :| |: https://libvirt.org -o- https://fstop138.berrange.com :| |: https://entangle-photo.org -o- https://www.instagram.com/dberrange :|
