Re: Architecture baseline for Forky

[dropping debian-ports since I saw a request for that in the thread]

On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 01:21:29PM +0100, Bastian Blank wrote:
>## amd64 (and i386)
>
>* x86-64-v2: Supported since around 2008[^x86]. Used in RedHat 9[^redhat9x86].
>* x86-64-v3: Supported since around 2013-2015[^x86]. Used in RedHat
>  10[^redhat10].
>
>I propose to use the x86-64-v2 baseline in Forky.  It gives us more then the 15
>years and everyone else already switched to it or even a newer variant.
>Factoring in a possible LTS for Trixie, this means that x86-64-v1 will stop
>being supported by Debian in 2030.

CERN spoke at DebConf [1] and indicated that ~47% of their accelerator 
control fleet runs x86-64-v1, which due to a cascading series of 
replacement costs meant that they estimated a budget of about €7M to 
migrate from CentOS 7 to CentOS Streams 9.  As a result they chose to 
switch to Debian instead, and they said that their plan A was to use 
trixie and upgrade to forky in 2030.  If I understood them correctly, 
they did say (in the Q&A) that there was a plan to upgrade to at least 
x86-64-v2 in the 2034 long shutdown, but that it was still a complex 
project with the possibility of being derailed by operational issues.

Has anyone consulted with them about how this would affect their plans?  
They're a pretty significant organization and I know a lot of Debian 
developers would like to keep them being able to use Debian.

[1] https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2025/DebConf25/debconf25-605-approaching-the-speed-of-light-with-debian-debians-role-in-the-worlds-largest-particle-accelerator.av1.webm