Re: The future of Linux32 builds and tests

On 10/08/2015 10:01 AM, [email protected] wrote:
> Going forward, the question remains, do we need to run Linux32 tests at all?  This would reduce the complexity of our configs, as well as significantly reduce our AWS bill. Do the linux32 test results provide significant differences from the ones we run on on linux64? I see three options going forward
> 
> 1) Run linux32 builds and tests periodically
> 2) Turn off tests but run the builds and make it a Tier 2 platform
> 3) Turn off Linux32 builds + tests entirely
> 
> Your data-driven input is sought,

When the possibility of making Linux32 "Tier 2" was brought up in 2012
[1], cpearce brought up a good point [2] about data on Linux users:

"...if we *were* to consider dropping a platform to tier 2, we should
make that decision with data to back it up, which for Linux should also
include data regarding the Firefox x86/x64 split in the major distros,
since most roll their own Firefox packages which we don't track."

We should try to get data from some 3rd party (not our download tallies)
about the Firefox-on-Linux 32-bit vs. 64-bit user stats, before we make
a call about demoting Linux32 to Tier 2. (Maybe we already have such data?)

~Daniel

[1]
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.planning/ahyq19APxb4/tvkekYhQbhcJ
[2]
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.planning/ahyq19APxb4/KO-P4xnwvIYJ