The end of 32Bit: Or is it?

I dunno about you guys but I have a lot of 32 bit machines and I’d like to use at least 2 of them.

So I only know of a few OS’s that still have 32 bit versions, Void linux and Arch linux, but do you guys know of any? List them here if ya do.

https://www.voidlinux.eu/
https://www.archlinux.org/

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ew no

Mint is still available in 32bit
https://linuxmint.com/download.php

So is Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. No idea about 18.4 LTS, we’ll probably know for sure in around 2 weeks
https://www.ubuntu.com/download/alternative-downloads

And the mother of all Debian-based distros, Debian itself
https://www.debian.org/releases/stretch/

EDIT : Fedora also still has a 32bit .iso if you look in the right-hand column

Ubuntu dropped 32bit permanently.

Also 16.04 is 2 years old ew. lol

You asked.

32 bit x86 is going, hardly anyone uses it and its losing support. Gentoo is one of the few distros that will support it for a good while.

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Hell, 32-bit ARM is disappearing, too.

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I’m pretty certain that the whole ‘dropping 32 bit thing’ doesn’t mean that it won’t be possible for downstream respins to make 32 bit distros. The still have to keep the 32 bit repositories for backwards compatibility. I’d imagine there will be Ubuntu, Arch, etc derivatives that ship a 32 bit OS, you just won’t get the vanilla version if they drop it.

As mentioned, there are older LTS’s that you could use. I know the Raspberry Pi Foundation ships a 32 bit Raspbian x86 that I’ve used and it works fine. I’m pretty sure some of the lightweight distros like LXLE and Peppermint would make their own 32 bit builds, they will just have to do more work themselves.

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Arch linux officially deprecated 32 bit support FYI. The only way to still use ‘arch’ on 32 bit is to use parabola.

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Please don’t recommend mint.

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Care to explain why people shouldn’t recommend it?

The devs are lazy, they are purposely behind and ignore important kernel changes, their driver care is terrible… I wouldn’t wish mint on my enemies.

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32-bit is bad and should feel bad.

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The current version of Mint 18.03 is built on Ubuntu 16.04. The upcoming Mint 19 release, which should be due within the next few weeks, will be based on Ubuntu 18.04. So if Ubuntu 18.04 goes 64bit only, so will Mint 19.

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64 bit has various advantages (from a performance perspective, memory address layout randomization perspective, etc.) and 64 bit hardware has been commonly available for 10+ years now. My Pentium D from 2006 for example was 64 bit capable.

chances are if your machine is 32 bit it likely isn’t going to get updated for meltdown either.

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32-bit is definitely end of life on the X86 architecture in my opinion but 32-bit still has a home in micro controllers and single board computers.
If I’m not mistaken 32-bit is more power efficient than 16-bit so that alone will encourage the adoption of 32-bit. Looking at you Arduino!

Things like 3D printers still run on 16-bit too so I suspect they’ll move to 32-bit at some point.

Side note the ESP32 is the successor to the ESP8266 commonly found on Nodemcu micro controller. My point is 16-bit -> 32-bit

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I am surprised no one said Puppy Linux. A lot of them are 32 bit.

Although Puppy may not have the latest and greatest support for software, it still works. Maybe not for a daily driver, but if you just want to run a 32 bit machine for the nostalgia it would do fine.

Kali is still available in 32 bit

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Ubuntu only dropped 32bit on the desktop. Nothing is stopping you from downloading the minimal iso and then installing the same packages as the normal desktop version. Or you could just use a better distro…

Has it been 10 years since amd/intel stopped making 32bit desktop CPUs?

Are you sure it’s not cheaper for you to save power and replace your 2x 32bit machines to 2x 64bit atom boxes?