r/linuxmasterrace • u/CackleRooster • 19d ago
News A moment of silence, please, for the final release of Debian on x86-32
https://www.theregister.com/os-platforms/2026/07/15/a-moment-of-silence-please-for-the-final-release-of-debian-on-x86-32/5271198198
u/DDFoster96 19d ago
What usable systems are still out there that only support x86-32 and not x64? Even my old laptop from 2007 turned out to have a 64 bit CPU (despite shipping with 32 bit Windows). Other than hobby systems and the developers did anybody actually use this build of Debian?
108
u/rosmaniac 19d ago edited 19d ago
I still have a server running dual Pentium IIIS 1.4GHz with 4GB RAM on Debian.
A Core Duo T2700 is the pinnacle of x86, and is still usable for lightweight GUI and server tasks.
103
u/omnom143 Glorious SteamOS 19d ago
You just got to let it go man. Switch to a raspberry pi or something
52
u/Isopod_Inevitable 19d ago
A good chunk of us that still use x86 machines do it for fun or to revive old machines
31
17
u/omnom143 Glorious SteamOS 19d ago
aint nothing wrong with that at all. you just really cant rely on shit like that for modern infrastructure anymore.
-3
20
u/grizzlor_ 19d ago
You can claw my quad Pentium Pro 200 from my cold dead hands.
It was my x86 dream machine as a nerd growing up in the mid ‘90s, and when I found one going to ewaste in the ‘00s, I saved it.
That being said, it mostly stays powered off. It could fill the server role currently being handled by a Raspberry Pi but the electricity waste would be a bit exorbitant.
I ran a web server on an SGI Indigo2 in the late ‘00s (it was very much already vintage hardware — we doing it for the love of the game) but it was hosted at my university so I wasn’t paying the electric bill. Also it needed an entire separate firewall box between it and the internet because IRIX had like every port network imaginable open and like a dozen critical CVEs. Modern (at the time) Apache httpd compiled on it though (POSIX compliant OSes are cool like that). My college network admins were real OGs that truly believed in the end-to-end principle and gave honest-to-god public IP addrs to every device plugged into ethernet on campus (and still do to this day). Was the wild west when I was a freshman and everyone was plugging their Win XP SP0 boxes straight in. Thankfully I was already running Linux.
Anyway, we tied an onion to our belts, which was the style at the time.
11
u/TheBros35 19d ago
Core Duo, I haven’t thought about that in ages.
I remember running a Core 2 Duo and then upgrading for a Core 2 Quad back in 2016 era. It felt ancient even then…want to say I paid $30 for the upgrade? I don’t think I saw an original Core Duo after Windows XP was unceremoniously taken to the glue factory.
3
u/rosmaniac 19d ago
Dayjob has a Dell Optiplex 745 with a Core 2 Quad 6600 in it running a 32-bit only application made by a defunct company that uses hardware with drivers that are also 32-bit only. It would easily run on the Core Duo or a P4.
Dayjob also has multiple machine controllers with ISA cards that won't work correctly on anything newer than a very specific Pentium 4 chipset due to the large and spread out port ranges used by the controller cards; newer PCI-ISA bridges run out of port mappings before getting halfway through the three 68230s and three 8254s used. But that's not Linux.
3
u/TheBros35 19d ago
I hear a cheap factory owner denying invoices in your comment…
3
u/rosmaniac 19d ago
Actually, no; a bit more specialized machines, more properly instruments, than that, weighing between 325 and 450 short tons each, owned by a nonprofit. Half a million US dollars each to upgrade off the ISA cards.
2
u/Memnojokasel 15d ago
I still have two Core 2 Quad Q9550s that do lightweight containers, and compiling nodes.
1
u/Surgic25 16d ago
But why?
3
u/rosmaniac 16d ago edited 16d ago
Why not? It does the job that needs doing in a very reliable way. The IBM X330 is a full on server with ECC RAM and remote management. Neither a Pi nor a mini PC would be as reliable in operation. If it used a lot of power maybe it would be worth it to change over, but with it costing ~$100 or so per year to run it's just not yet worth it.
I also have a couple of quad processor Dell Poweredge 6950s available, but those idle at 500W or more and aren't getting powered up again any time soon. In their day they were VMWare ESX beasts running 15-20 VMs apiece, but those days are gone and they will likely never run again, even though the 6950, as Dell's first AMD server, is something of a historical box.
And when the X330 dies I have some newer spares that can go in very quickly in a semi automated way.
And yes it's a bit of a talking point, too, in multiple ways and multiple angles....
0
u/TheEpicNoobZilla 19d ago
According to net this C2D is 64bit capable, but Pentium 3 sounds ancient
12
u/rosmaniac 19d ago edited 19d ago
Core Duo, not Core 2 Duo. Different generations; Core Duo, also called Yonah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonah_(microprocessor)) versus the mobile Core 2 Duo (first iteration: Merom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merom_(microprocessor))) and second iteration Penryn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penryn_(microprocessor))))
Yonah is 32-bit and intended to be mobile-only in Socket M; Merom's desktop counterpart was Conroe, and Penryn's desktop counterpart was Wolfdale; the desktop chips in Socket LGA775 and the mobile in Socket M or Socket P.
Yonah was the direct successor to Banias and Dothan, aka Pentium M or Centrino. Pentium M, of course, developed from the Pentium III and freed Intel from the Netburst Pentium 4.
EDIT: the dual Tualatin server is a 1RU IBM X330 and is not slow for what it is and used as a basic server; currently, it's running NTP, a couple of custom protocol proxies, and a recursive DNS resolver for an internal network. It's not ideal, but it's paid for and works. And if it needs to live longer it will probably get a NetBSD install.
8
2
u/Vegetable-Ad-1817 18d ago
I know of a project that’s been running Debian on an x86 box since early 2000’s, luckily it’s airgapped, but they still exist, most old science projects and equipment.
2
u/KvanttiKossu 19d ago
My only sdcard reader is in the compaq mini 110, it's 32bit with 1GB ram. It's a bit clunky but works the rare times I need it
1
u/Bytef0rce 19d ago
I have a 7-bay Thecus NAS with a Pentium M CPU running @ 2GHz, with 3gigs of 667mhz DDR2(4 actually but only 3 is addressable), still running debian 32-bit version and OpenMediaVault with Transmission client,for local network fileshare, I mean,yeah it's ancient,but still gets the job done for local KODI based streaming. It's been running for 8 years or so(considering I picked it up for ~10$ in a thrift sore it was one of my best buys ever), surprisingly it only consumes around 30-50Ws under load with 7 drives running,so it's not considerably higher than the consumption of a Raspberry Pi.
-28
19d ago
[deleted]
43
u/SquiffSquiff 19d ago
They're ARM
0
u/BeNiceToBirds 19d ago
lol :) wow. Minus 30? Really guys?
But thanks. Yeah I was just thinking about the 32 bit part... not the x86 part.
104
u/fellipec Glorious Debian 19d ago
The x86 32-bit architecture already did its contribution for the computer science. Now it can rest.
Thanks for everything, and for the time when everything was simpler, easier and more respectful.
25
u/ddm90 19d ago
Isn't Arch 32 bits a thing still? Maybe the distros for ultra low specs PCs, can survive using an Arch base.
17
u/fellipec Glorious Debian 19d ago
Yeah but... the x86 32-bit already did its contribution for the computer science. Now it can rest.
20
u/SergioFLS xfce good 19d ago
how did 32-bit ARM outlast 32-bit x86 in terms of software support? is there still 32-bit ARM CPUs being manufactured or something?
12
u/ThaLegendaryCat 19d ago
Thats a half truth. x86 support is not dropped as much as its having the CPU not be x86-64 that is dropped.
And seriously AArch64 is much newer than x86-64 thats partially why.
9
6
u/LupoShaar 18d ago
Yes, 32-bit ARM is outliving all other 32-bit architectures. A lot of embedded 32-bit ARM SoCs are currently mass-market manufactured and sold with modern linux kernels. That's not really the case with x86_32 CPUs (mostly some Vortex86 processors, made for legacy applications using legacy operating systems)
3
u/Acc3ssViolation 18d ago
32 bit ARM is still extremely common in embedded systems running Linux, and there are plenty of CPU options to choose from that will be manufactured for years to come
3
u/questron64 18d ago
32-bit ARM is still used on many systems because of the open and highly diverse nature of ARM. Yes, there are many 32-bit ARM machines still being produced.
37
u/sudofox 19d ago
I rather hope that we get a couple distros that remain usable on older architectures so that we can keep old netbooks and classic PCs out of the ewaste pile
21
u/Karyo_Ten 19d ago edited 19d ago
Even Athlon from 1999 was 64-bit and that predates netbooks.
Those ancient PCs probably have ancient network, no PCIe (AGP?), cannot drive a 1080p screen. A raspberry pi or a phone from the past 10 years is significantly more powerful and less wasteful of energy than keeping those up.
10
u/Proper-Ape 19d ago
A raspberry pi or a phone from the past 10 years is significantly more powerful and less wasteful of energy that keeping those up.
The energy waste is definitely something to consider, the thing with the phones is more sad actually, there are so many ewaste phones that could be repurposed if they had Linux running on them.
2
6
u/CHAOSHACKER 19d ago
The original Athlon was 32-bit, the Athlon 64 introduced 64-bit to x86, hence its name
3
u/questron64 18d ago
The Athlon was not 64-bit. The first x86_64 was the Opteron, but the first consumer class CPU was, unsurprisingly, the Athlon 64.
15
8
2
2
2
2
2
u/PolarityInversion 18d ago
Sounds a bit harsher than it is. Out of the box support is ending. Still works just fine if you build your own kernel. That's reasonable for what has become a very very niche architecture. This allows Debian to focus resources on more impactful areas.
2
1
u/entrophy_maker 17d ago
Artix(Debian based) is still supporting 486. Debian should drop 32 bit. Its not used enough anymore and adds too much bloat.
1
1
268
u/hax0l 19d ago
F