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Ubuntu to drop i386 in 18.04
Ubuntu seems to be poising itself to letting 32-bitters alone in the dark:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2016-June/039420.html [ubuntu.com]
in 2018, the question will come if we can effectively provide
security support on i386.
cross-grading between i386->amd64 is
not something we can reliably ship.
Building i386 images is not "for free", it comes at the cost of
utilizing our build farm, QA and validation time. Whilst we have
scalable build-farms, i386 still requires all packages, autopackage
tests, and ISOs to be revalidated across our infrastructure. As well
as take up mirror space & bandwidth.
Thus the question is what can we and what should we do to limit i386
installations before they become unsupportable?
In essence this would mean April 2021 as the sunset for i386 as the
host/base OS architecture. And April 2023 to run legacy i386
applications with security support.
I do use, from time to time, a (then, in 2009) top-of-the-notch 3.4GHz PIV, for the little gaming I do and for printing. But I did notice even it is easily overwhelmed by many javascript-laden sites. How many soylentils are going to fight tooth and nails to keep their 32 pc's up and running beyond 2018, are 32 bit platforms of any relevance today aside as for IoT or CNC processes?
