On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 3:31 PM Sam Hartman <hartm...@debian.org> wrote: > > >>>>> "\Luke" == Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <l...@lkcl.net> writes: > Hi. > First, thanks for working with you. > I'm seeing a lot more depth into where you're coming from, and it is > greatly appreciated.
likewise. > I'd like to better understand the train wreck you see. that 32-bit hardware is consigned to landfill. debian has a far higher impact (as a leader, due to the number of ports) than i think anyone realises. if debian says "we're dropping 32 bit hardware", that's it, it's done. [btw, i'm still running my web site off of a 2006 dual-core XEON, because it was one of the extremely hard-to-get ultra-low-power ones that, at idle, the entire system only used 4 watts at the plug]. > Eventually, Debian itself will drop 32-bit arches. that's the nightmare trainwreck that i foresee. that means that every person who has an original raspberry pi who wants to run debian... can't. every person who has a $30 to $90 32-bit SBC with a 32-bit ARM core from AMLogic, Rockchip, Allwinner - landfill. marvell openrd ultimate: landfill. the highly efficient dual-core XEON that runs the email and web service that i'm using to communicate: landfill. ingenic's *entire product range* - based as it is on MIPS32 - landfill. that's an entire company's product range that's going to be wiped out because of an *assumption* that all hardware is going "64 bit"! to give you some idea of how influential debian really is: one of *the* most iconic processors that AMD, bless 'em, tried desperately for about a decade to End-of-Life, was the AMD Geode LX800. the reason why it wouldn't die is because up until around 2013, *debian still supported it* out-of-the-box. and the reason why it was so well supported in the first place was: the OLPC project [they still get over 10,000 software downloads a week on the OLPC website, btw - 12 years beyond the expected lifetime of the OLPC XO-1] i installed debian back in 2007 on a First International Computers (FIC) box with an AMD Geode LX800, for Earth University in Costa Rica. over 10 years later they keep phoning up my friend, saying "what the hell kind of voodoo magic did you put in this box?? we've had 10 years worth of failed computers in the library next to this thing, and this damn tiny machine that only uses 5 watts *just won't die*" :) there's absolutely no chance of upgrading it, now. the embedded world is something that people running x86_64 hardware just are... completely unaware of. additionally, the sheer overwhelming package support and convenience of debian makes it the "leader", no matter the "statistics" of other distros. other distros cover one, *maybe* two hardware ports: x86_64, and *maybe* arm64 if we're lucky. if debian gives up, that leaves people who are depending on them _really_ in an extremely bad position. and yes, i'm keenly aware that that's people who *aren't* paying debian developers, nor are they paying the upstream developers. maybe it will be a good thing, if 32-bit hardware support in debian is dropped. it would certainly get peoples' attention that they actually f*****g well should start paying software libre developers properly, instead of constantly spongeing off of them, in a way that shellshock and heartbleed really didn't grab people. at least with shellshock, heartbleed etc. there was a software "fix". dropping 32 bit hardware support, there *is* no software fix. l.
