TLDR: Debian will stop producing 32-bit iso installer images. You can still use 32-bit applications. This will stop you from installing the newest version of Debian on a 32-bit processor. That's all.
32bit*
Lol, the nomenclature has always been a bit scuffed. Do you refer to desktop 64bit as x86_64 or amd64? (There's history behind those...)
Yeah, I mean if you want to get picky, the actual i386 processor family hasn't been supported by the Linux kernel since 2012, and was dropped by Debian in 2007.
Most people were generally not particularly affected by that, seeing as the last i386 chip was released in (I think) 1989!
Debian's choice to refer to the whole x86-32 line as i386 has always been a weird historical quirk.
Debian’s choice to refer to the whole x86-32 line as i386 has always been a weird historical quirk.
Indeed; there's also this announcement from 2016.
Can someone explain like I am 5?
Is just just talking about 32bit processor support? Or are we also talking about 32 bit programs as well?
The first
Thanks
☺️
I've always kept a 32 bit Debian ISO on my Ventoy drive just in case.
Would be a shame if they stopped supporting it but I'd put dyne:bolic on my drive which was the first distro I ever used.
Will that mean a bunch of my steam games won't work? Please don't say that, as I love debian, and I love my games.
No, this is just about the kernel and the installer/images.
You won't be able to install Debian on an x86-32 computer anymore, but everything you can currently do on an x86-64 install still continue to work.
Games aren't being affected with this change
No
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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