Re: proposal [Forky i386] : linux-image-pentium4

On Fri, 2026-08-14 at 10:12 +0100, Simon McVittie wrote:
> It would be completely fine for the scope of i386 in Debian to
> continue to decrease, as long as it still has the parts needed by
> legacy 32-bit binaries (basically glibc, Mesa, Wine's
> dependencies[1], and their recursive dependencies and build-deps).

The closed source printer drivers for Brother laser printers &
“multifunctionals”, which are available as .rpm & .deb from Brother’s
website (and Ubuntu packages in multiverse¹), are only available as 32-
bit binaries, but they only need glibc (I think).

(Yes, Brother is selling printers *today* that only work with 32-bit
binary drivers…)

The other reverse dependencies on libc6-i386 in Ubuntu all seem to be
development-related tools.


There probably are other, maybe less common, third party/proprietary
applications (outside Brother printers & Windows applications) that
might still need this too.


¹ https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=brother+lpr&searchon=names

-- 
Jan Claeys

(please don't CC me when replying to the list)