The loss of 32bit is a BIG nono and openSUSE should fix it!

English Soapbox
21

On 2015-09-16, Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@no-mx.forums.microfocus.com> wrote:
> There are many 32 bits machines used by impoverished people, and in less
> favoured countries. openSUSE will disappear there.

That would of course be a shame. I don’t know whether such people are better served by continued 32-bit support or by
redirecting such resources for assisting in proving 64-bit hardware. The 32-bit RAM cap is quite restrictive nowadays
and I simply don’t know how much this an important consideration for GNU/Linux distribution developers.

> Me, I have a 32 bit home server, using 13.1.

I guess the number of 32-bit home servers running openSUSE is not large which I suspect puts you into a small niche. The
few people I know running 32-bit home servers are running Debian - might this be a feasible option for you in the
future since there would be little benefit running the latest kernel + drivers?

22

Carlos E. R. wrote:

> There are many 32 bits machines used by impoverished people, and in less
> favoured countries. openSUSE will disappear there.

Add a bunch of old farts to your list - there are at least 2 dozen 32 bit
users in my small church. They seem to have appointed me as their IT
contact since I was the one who led them to openSUSE when windows got to be
a problem. They have no good reason to spend money on equipment which will
likely outlive most of them anyway. If KDE ever goes 64-bit only I’m going
to be in trouble but until then I’ll just have to keep track of which
underlying distros still support 32-bit legacy machines.

I’m already getting hassled by those who resent the loss of the Gecko on the
boot splash with 13.2.

–
Will Honea

23

On Wed 16 Sep 2015 06:24:26 PM CDT, Will Honea wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

> There are many 32 bits machines used by impoverished people, and in
> less favoured countries. openSUSE will disappear there.

Add a bunch of old farts to your list - there are at least 2 dozen 32
bit users in my small church. They seem to have appointed me as their
IT contact since I was the one who led them to openSUSE when windows
got to be a problem. They have no good reason to spend money on
equipment which will likely outlive most of them anyway. If KDE ever
goes 64-bit only I’m going to be in trouble but until then I’ll just
have to keep track of which underlying distros still support 32-bit
legacy machines.

I’m already getting hassled by those who resent the loss of the Gecko
on the boot splash with 13.2.

Hi
The thing you need to check is are any of the machines 64bit capable, I
see many 64bit capable machines installed with the 32bit version of
windows (You can also use the same activation number for 64bit as well
with windows). This DELL Inspiron I’m typing from came with windows 7
32bit and 6GB of ram with only 3.5 being capable of being used. It now
has the 64bit version of windows 10 installed using all 6GB of RAM. It
is dual booting into SLED 12 of course…

A user on the ML was having doubts about their eeePC and loss of
32bit, I asked him what the CPU was, checked the specs and it was 64bit
capable so was not concerned anymore…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel
3.12.44-52.10-default If you find this post helpful and are logged into
the web interface, please show your appreciation and click on the star
below… Thanks!

24

I’m surprised you didn’t keep them on 13.1/KDE4 awaiting its transition to Evergreen (as here)! Was it because Evergreen sounds a bit like the name of a final resting place? :smiley:

25

On 2015-09-16 21:36, consused wrote:

> I’m surprised you didn’t keep them on 13.1/KDE4 awaiting its transition
> to Evergreen (as here)! Was it because Evergreen sounds a bit like the
> name of a final resting place? :smiley:

Mine are.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

26

On 2015-09-16 17:43, flymail wrote:
> On 2015-09-16, Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@no-mx.forums.microfocus.com> wrote:
>> There are many 32 bits machines used by impoverished people, and in less
>> favoured countries. openSUSE will disappear there.
>
> That would of course be a shame. I don’t know whether such people are better served by continued 32-bit support or by
> redirecting such resources for assisting in proving 64-bit hardware.

Well, an open source organization can not do that, it doesn’t have that
amount of huge money.

> The 32-bit RAM cap is quite restrictive nowadays
> and I simply don’t know how much this an important consideration for GNU/Linux distribution developers.

Well, it is restrictive, of course, but most of those 32 bit machines
don’t have big memories nor powerful CPUs, by today’s standards. In my
case, I only want my machines to keep doing what they do now without
having to purchase another one :slight_smile:

Me, I don’t use it as a desktop machine, but as a slow home server 24*7.
I don’t use big hungry tasks on it.

But other people that don’t have any other machines will use them for
their desktops. They simply can’t run many applications simultaneously,
that’s all. They still can use browsers, email, watch videos… same as
those machines did before.

>> Me, I have a 32 bit home server, using 13.1.
>
> I guess the number of 32-bit home servers running openSUSE is not large which I suspect puts you into a small niche.

Absolutely :slight_smile:

Although I know some one that runs several (dozens? hundreds? unsure)
postfix servers in virtual environments, using 32 bit virtual machines,
in 64 bit iron. Apparently they use much less memory.

It is also possible that building 32 bit postfix binaries for use on 64
bit openSUSE would work for him.

> The
> few people I know running 32-bit home servers are running Debian - might this be a feasible option for you in the
> future since there would be little benefit running the latest kernel + drivers?

Yes, I’m considering Debian. Ubuntu is a possibility just now, but I
have no reason to ditch Evergreen for Ubuntu, if the support is for a
similar amount of time. When Evergreen expires, I’ll switch the
surviving 32 bit hardware to Debian. That will make two friends of mine
very happy :-}

Years ago, when openSUSE changed the support cycle from two years to 18
months, we lost several users and contributors to Debian. I think it was
Debian, I’m unsure. :frowning:

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

27

On 2015-09-16, Will Honea <whonea@whonea.net> wrote:
> Add a bunch of old farts to your list - there are at least 2 dozen 32 bit
> users in my small church.

Ahh - we shouldn’t forget the old farts! My father tried openSUSE but the number of times it broke with the need to fix
it from command line put him off. I introduced him to Linux Mint and he’s now very happy with it, and is now my go-to
solution for old farts (I suspect something Mint wouldn’t adverstise!). AFAIK, Linux Mint will continue to maintain full
support for 32-bit builds.

> They have no good reason to spend money on equipment which will likely outlive most of them anyway.

Well it’s impressive and good to see that they’re still having fun with GNU/Linux at their age!

> If KDE ever goes 64-bit only I’m going to be in trouble but until then I’ll just have to keep track of which
> underlying distros still support 32-bit legacy machines.

I don’t think Desktop Environments (such as KDE) are strongly bound to archectures, so I can’t see 32-bit support
dropping anytime soon, even if openSUSE abandons 32-bit. Perhaps LXQt might be an ideal alternative to KDE for
lower-spec machines. AFAIK openSUSE (from 13.1) supports the LXQt pattern.

28

I have an old Sempron which is 64 bit, with 3.2 GB of ram. I have tried both 64 & 32 bit versions of FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux. All will run fine, most of the time. but 64 bit versions are faster and seem to be more stable. This box is circa 2006 and the stock OS on it was Windows XP,
32 bit. I guess in its day, that fit the needs of most people, but those using it were getting short-changed , as this box runs beautifully as a 64 bit unix-like system. Right now, I am running 64 bit OpenBSD, but definitely most 64 bit Linuxes will work as well. The only caveat is CentOS 7 will not work, since it will not run on a single core processor. That’s a pity, but FreeBSD is equally good as a server, and it will run.

29

consused wrote:

> I’m surprised you didn’t keep them on 13.1/KDE4 awaiting its transition
> to Evergreen (as here)! Was it because Evergreen sounds a bit like the
> name of a final resting place? :smiley:
>

Most are, in fact, still using 13.1 for exactly that reason. I moved a
couple to 13.2 where they had disk space to hold multiple versions just as a
test. I’m still not real comfortable with Evergreen as it exists today -
some availability issues - but it’s getting close enough for most of these
folks.

–
Will Honea

30

malcolmlewis wrote:

> The thing you need to check is are any of the machines 64bit capable, I
> see many 64bit capable machines installed with the 32bit version of
> windows (You can also use the same activation number for 64bit as well
> with windows). This DELL Inspiron I’m typing from came with windows 7
> 32bit and 6GB of ram with only 3.5 being capable of being used. It now
> has the 64bit version of windows 10 installed using all 6GB of RAM. It
> is dual booting into SLED 12 of course…
>
> A user on the ML was having doubts about their eeePC and loss of
> 32bit, I asked him what the CPU was, checked the specs and it was 64bit
> capable so was not concerned anymore…

Hey, when I say old devices, I mean OLD devices! I carry a portable vacuum
with me because most of this stuff has a substantial layer of dirt inside
the box which is the source of 90% of the hardware problems!

You would be surprised at some equipment in use at smaller non-profit
organizations. They get a large portion of their computers as donations
when community members upgrade - especially with many communities now
requiring recycling of electronic equipment. Fortunately, very few 386 and
486-DX boxes will even power up anymore but I still see them periodically.

–
Will Honea

31

Well in any case I may still run tumbleweed on the side, I just dont want things like pipelight to stop working like what happened in centOS

32

Okay so two days I will give leap at least a try but the mintute it says I cannot run 32bit apps I am going back to manjaro.

33

I am still successfully running some programs that were compiled under 32bit suse 10.1 (from before opensuse existed).

I guess the needed 32bit libraries were installed by default.

(I am posting this from 13.2, but I have succesfully tested those programs under Leap 42.1).

34

I just saw what happened to CentOS, its real mess over there if you want to use stuff like 32bit wine

35

Hi
No issues installing crossover office (12.5.1), not the most recent version but it’s working…

36

And there are those, most of whom are supported by non-profit social organizations, who cannot replace their donated 32-bit systems. Although we have very few disabled people coming into our business, we still build our doors wide enough and create ramps for those with wheelchairs.

But, of course, back to the real issue: People with the appropriate skills willing to donate their personal time to invest in programming and supporting 32 bit OS & software for these people.

…oh, yes: And quickly acknowledging and welcoming their offers to help.:wink:

37

Yep. I agree with your reasoning.

I have an old system from Very Early 90s (386) running WFWG 3.11, running very nicely indeed, snappy and solid. Of course, isolated most of the time, and not for doing the latest & greatest, but still functional and still very usefull to do what it is used for.

I also have a couple of older machines running a Puppy Linux from a few years back and running lightning fast, very snappy. One elderly fellow is using a similar machine I put together for him to do all his Facebook activities (the only thing he actually does with it) and is very happy with it.

So, all things according to relativity and level of opportunity.

38

… which, of course, is the bottom line.

39

Which is of course nonsense, as has been mentioned already.

You can still run 32bit applications, including wine ones, in Leap. The kernel still supports it, and the 32bit libraries are still available.
And this is not going to change anytime soon.

Actually, the full Leap is still built for 32bit as well (just not published).
Somebody will just have to step up to maintain a 32bit port (for the installation medium mostly), and I’m pretty sure this will happen.

40

I agree with a lot of people, 32bit is ESSENTIAL not just because as someone said “32bit is only for 32bit computers” WRONG!!!, I for one made the biggest mistake going, I upgraded from OpenSuSe 12.1 to 42.1 (Leap) using the web installer for distribution upgrade, and because it’s all x64, mono-complete and mono-core, is x32 (mono -V shows architecture: x86) which in fact relies on libgdiplus libraries which are by default in 42.1, x64 and thus any calls to it from mono will crash mono, so yeah 32bit is essential for other software that has not yet changed to x64.

I (used to) run a virtual world development system on my home server (heavily relying on mono and mysql) before upgrading which was 32bit, but since I upgraded, this is not possible now, because of an architecture conflict between mono and the libgdiplus.so library, and downgrading is not possible because there’s over 80GB if files that I can’t backup unless someone can provide a backup medium that can backup 80+GB of data in just 10 minutes.

Upgrading was a cinch, but if I had known that upgrading would change the architecture to x64 I would have stayed with 12.1_X86

So, 32bit IS essential where other software that hasn’t yet been built on an X64 platform is still being used.

EG.

mono -V shows architecture: X86 (32bit)

/sbin/ldconfig -p | grep libgdiplus

    libgdiplus.so.0 (libc6,x86-64) =&gt; /usr/local/lib/libgdiplus.so.0
    libgdiplus.so.0 (libc6,x86-64) =&gt; /usr/lib64/libgdiplus.so.0

which shows libgdiplus is X64 and running the virtual world software using mono shows:-

[ERROR] FATAL UNHANDLED EXCEPTION: System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for ‘System.Drawing.GDIPlus’ threw an exception. —> System.DllNotFoundException: libgdiplus.so

Which means mono is looking for a 32 bit libgdiplus.so library and it will not be found, because all the libraries in OpenSuSe 42.1 are 64Bit.

Also using an extended log level for mono, this is what is produced:-

Mono: DllImport error loading library ‘/usr/local/lib/libgdiplus.so’: ‘/usr/local/lib/libgdiplus.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory’.

But dir /usr/local/lib/libgdi* shows /usr/local/lib/libgdiplus.so.0 -> libgdiplus.so

So that means that libgdiplus.so is there but it is X64 not X32