Re: dropping 32-bit host support

[Liviu Ionescu]

> On 16 Mar 2023, at 02:57, Andrew Randrianasulu <randrianasulu@gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> Looking at https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/8.0 
> 
> ===
> System emulation on 32-bit x86 and ARM hosts has been deprecated. The QEMU 
> project no longer considers 32-bit x86 and ARM support for system emulation 
> to be an effective use of its limited resources, and thus intends to 
> discontinue.
> 
>  ==
> 
> well, I guess arguing from memory-consuption point on 32 bit x86 hosts (like 
> my machine where I run 32 bit userspace on 64 bit kernel) is not going 
> anywhere, but what about 32bit userspace on Android tablets, either via Limbo 
> emulator or qemu itself in Termux?

or the countless 32-bit Raspberry Pi?

my xPack binary tools, which include qemu arm & qemu riscv, are also available 
for arm 32-bit, and the analytics show about the same number of downloads for 
32-bit as for 64-bit.

given the current chip shortages, I estimate that the 32-bit Arm binaries will 
still be useful for a few more years.

> At least I hope it will be not *actively* (intentionally) broken, just 
> ...unsupported (so users who know how to run git revert still will get their 
> build for some more time).

I concur, please do not intentionally break support for arm 32-bit, this will 
make a lot of unhappy users, who currently have no choice to upgrade.


thank you,

Liviu