Re: Deprecation of i386 and 32-bit powerpc for 15.0

On Sat, 21 Jun 2025 02:58:59 +0000
Colin Percival <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 6/20/25 15:15, Vadim Goncharov wrote:
> > On Sat, 21 Jun 2025 04:09:29 +0900
> > Tomoaki AOKI <[email protected]> wrote:
> >   
> >>>>> - ~6 months after branching (BSDCan 2026 devsummit):
> >>>>>
> >>>>>     - evaluate how stable/14 has been fairing (are MFCs breaking
> >>>>>       deprecated platforms) (note that stable/13 will be EOL at this
> >>>>>       point)
> >>>>>
> >>>>>       - if all is smooth, start removing code from main for i386 and
> >>>>>         powerpc kernels as well as any powerpc userspace code not
> >>>>>         required for lib32  
> >>>>
> >>>> When can we expect lib32 removal?  
> >>> Hopefully never.  
> >>
> >> Maybe this could puzzle more persons.
> >>
> >> IIUC, lib32 is for running 32bit apps on 64bit platform, which is NOT
> >> planned for removal.
> >>
> >> What is going to be deprecated is 32bit bare-metal hardwares supports
> >> for i386 and 32bit PowerPC, which never runs on 64bit modes.  
> > 
> > Does that mean that support for 32-bit builds for virtual machines (that's
> > important because they use less memory -> buy cheaper, especially when
> > lots of them) will be continued after 2030 ?  
> 
> If by "virtual machine" you mean bhyve/qemu/KVM/virtualbox/etc then no, that
> will not be possible in 15.x and later because a full virtual machine needs
> to run a FreeBSD kernel, and there will be no FreeBSD/i386 kernel for 15.x
> and later.
> 
> If by "virtual machine" you mean containers, that will still be possible.

Of course I mean real virtual machine e.g. running in a cloud. The same code
compiled for 32 bits consumes less memory than for 64 bits (int and ptr size).
So for 100 VMs in a cloud 1 GB RAM each vs 100 VMs in a cloud 2 GB RAM you
have a significant cost difference (lib32 is only partial solution here, as
you also have system daemons and kernel).


-- 
WBR, @nuclight