https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/RetireARMv7

== Owner ==
* Name: [[User:pbrobinson| Peter Robinson]]
* Email: <pbrobin...@fedoraproject.org>

== Detailed Description ==

The ARMv7 arm architecture was the second variant of the arm
architecture that Fedora has supported, the first was ARMv5, the third
is aarch64. The proposal is to retire ARMv7 as part of the Fedora 37
release. This will allow ARMv7/armhfp to be supported until the Fedora
36 end of life in around June 2023.

Overall arm32 is generally waning with generally few new ARMv7 devices
added to Fedora in recent releases. To add to that a number of newer
Fedora features designed to improve speed and security of the Fedora
release are causing 32 bit architectures in general primarily due to
the process memory limit when linking large applications. The
ARMv7/armhfp is the last fully supported 32 bit architecture, we still
currently build i686 packages, but it's not shipped as artefacts.

== Benefit to Fedora ==

The primary benefit is to maintainers of the ARM architecture, the
various toolchain teams and package maintainers in general.

== Scope ==

* Proposal owners: Work with rel-eng to disable the architecture in
koji, remove all the various pungi pieces and clean up any other
release detritus.

* Other developers: No action required.

* Release engineering: [https://pagure.io/releng/issue/10387 Releng
issue #10387] Disable a bunch of stuff, it's really just one koji
admin command and a PR for pungi config changes

* Policies and guidelines: No initial updates to policies and
guidelines as ARMv7 won't completely disappear until F-36 EOL.

* Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

== Upgrade/compatibility impact ==

Any current users of Fedora on ARMv7 devices won't be able to upgrade
to Fedora 37, they will have to stay on Fedora 36 until it's EOL.

== How To Test ==
There's not really anything to test as it's removing the support for
an architecture.

== User Experience ==
Any current users of Fedora on ARMv7 devices won't be able to upgrade
to Fedora 37, they will have to stay on Fedora 36 until it's EOL.

== Dependencies ==
N/A.

== Contingency Plan ==

Continue on as before with the added advantage of the people that
protested the removal of the architecture will be actively
contributing to the maintenance of the architecture

* Contingency mechanism: Leave enabled. We basically won't get to this
if FESCo doesn't approve the change.
* Contingency deadline: Mass rebuild.
* Blocks release? Yes
* Blocks product? Yes

== Documentation ==

N/A

== Release Notes ==

Fedora Linux 37 with the ARMv7 architecture is retired into the
sunset. There will definitely be celebrations, there will likely be
some that shed some tears! Overall for the maintainers it will likely
be seen as a net win, for the few, generally shrinking, users it's
probably a net loss but they can probably just go and buy a Raspberry
Pi Zero 2W for US$15. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


-- 
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis
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