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Lubuntu Needs Help Testing For 32-bit x86 Support To Continue

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  • Lubuntu Needs Help Testing For 32-bit x86 Support To Continue

    Phoronix: Lubuntu Needs Help Testing For 32-bit x86 Support To Continue

    While Ubuntu and most of its derivatives have stopped producing 32-bit x86 images with the number of devices out there dwindling that can't run x86_64, Lubuntu is among the few still offering i686 images to help those who may be running on outdated hardware but still interested in running the latest Linux software...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    18.04 LTS exists already. That's 5 years of support. Is anyone going to use Pentium 4 (and friends) in 2023?

    Just keep 18.04 x86 alive through the official period, then further support makes little sense. Affected hardware will be more than 20 years old by then.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by eydee View Post
      18.04 LTS exists already. That's 5 years of support. Is anyone going to use Pentium 4 (and friends) in 2023?

      Just keep 18.04 x86 alive through the official period, then further support makes little sense. Affected hardware will be more than 20 years old by then.
      I agree with the first part, but the 2nd part is wrong. To my recollection, Intel's Lincroft architecture (for Atom) was released in 2010, and that was strictly 32-bit. If you account for other x86 CPUs that aren't built for a typical desktop Windows workload, Intel's Quark is also strictly 32-bit, and the newest was released in 2015.

      Anyway, I figure if anybody really wants to stick with 32-bit, they could just go for Debian.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
        I agree with the first part, but the 2nd part is wrong.
        Technically speaking, yes, but that's a nitpick.

        Lincroft Atoms ran like total crap even when new, seriously.

        Intel's Quark is an embedded SoC with the usual embedded device options, so it's supported by "distros" that target embedded, like Yocto, at best. I think I saw someone trying to add OpenWrt support for it, some time ago. Yocto and OpenWrt cross-compile for whatever architecture is the target anyway, so you don't really care.

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        • #5
          I also forgot to mention that there are still a lot of Intel laptops that only have 32-bit EFIs, and don't support legacy BIOS. Though you can install a 64-bit OS on these, it's a lot more work. Intel's Bay Trail is a good example of this.

          Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
          Technically speaking, yes, but that's a nitpick.
          Not really - there are still enough of them out in the wild that I occasionally hear about them.
          Lincroft Atoms ran like total crap even when new, seriously.
          I totally agree. Even if they supported 64-bit, they'd still be terrible.
          Intel's Quark is an embedded SoC with the usual embedded device options, so it's supported by "distros" that target embedded, like Yocto, at best.
          I mentioned Quark as more of a side note, rather than a demographic of people who still need a full-blown 32-bit distro. However, Debian has been successfully installed on it.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
            I also forgot to mention that there are still a lot of Intel laptops that only have 32-bit EFIs, and don't support legacy BIOS. Though you can install a 64-bit OS on these, it's a lot more work. Intel's Bay Trail is a good example of this.
            Wrong, It's been a while that Fedora and Ubuntu (and probably more, didn't check) support installing a 64bit OS in a 32bit UEFI system, natively.

            Not really - there are still enough of them out in the wild that I occasionally hear about them.
            Not in that sense. Nitpicking in the sense that none in his right mind would want to run a modern desktop distro on these devices anyway, even if thechnically younger than 20 years.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
              Wrong, It's been a while that Fedora and Ubuntu (and probably more, didn't check) support installing a 64bit OS in a 32bit UEFI system, natively.
              Again... I explicitly said you could do it, but it's more work. So no, I'm not wrong - stop trying to argue for the sake of arguing, because you didn't provide any disputing evidence. And yet you accuse me of nitpicking...
              Not in that sense. Nitpicking in the sense that none in his right mind would want to run a modern desktop distro on these devices anyway, even if thechnically younger than 20 years.
              Except the moments where I heard about people who owned such products are the very people who claim they still want to use a modern distro.

              Regardless, I will admit they're a very small minority, and I also feel that they should be left behind. My only point was there is 32-bit hardware less than a decade old. And yet here you are, nitpicking about how I'm nitpicking.

              You've really gone downhill in your arguments the past month.

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              • #8
                I have an old Lincroft nettop that I'm using as a backup server. It is plenty fast for what I use it for.
                and I actually used the Lubuntu images to install 18.04 on it, as I'm more concerned with the ability for it to get security patches, than anything else.

                So 18.04 on Lincroft makes total sense, depending on what you use it for.

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                • #9
                  I retired ia32 installs when the list of kernel switches suppressing certain instructions got too long. The last one I actually booted was a Pentium M ThinkPad and I think it is in the museum now.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
                    Again... I explicitly said you could do it, but it's more work.
                    I explicitly said that there is native support, which means you install the 64bit distro and it works with no modifications. No "more work" is required.

                    So no, I'm not wrong
                    Yes, yes you are. It's not even a new thing. Fedora 27 and Ubuntu 18.04 had native support for 32bit UEFI installation of 64bit systems, so that argument for "keeping alive 32bit" is moot.

                    Except the moments where I heard about people who owned such products are the very people who claim they still want to use a modern distro.
                    They are not in their right mind, I did talk about them too in my statement. I know people who cling to their XP garbage PC that takes ages to do anything, does that mean we should keep PIII systems with XP running? No.

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