Re: Can we drop upstream Linux x32 support?

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On 12/11/18 02:23, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
I'm seriously considering sending a patch to remove x32 support from
upstream Linux.

I am downstream maintainer of several self-patched kernels at 1&1 Ionos. The kernels are rolled out to several tenthousands of production servers running in several datacenters and in multiple continents.

Currently, we have a few thousands of servers relying on 32bit ABIs in some thousands of VMs and/or containers of various types (LXC, OpenVZ, etc).

Here is my private opinion, not speaking for 1&1: at some point the future, 32bit userspace support needs to be dropped anyway, somewhen in future. This is inevitable in the very long term.

Thus the discussion should be about _timing_ / _roadmaps_, but not about the fact as such.

My suggestion:

1) please release / declare a new LTS kernel, with upstream support for at least 5 years (as usual). Currently, only 4.4 and 4.9 are marked as LTS. Either mark another existing stable kernel as LTS, or a future one.

2) please _announce_ _now_ that after the _next_ LTS kernel (whichever you want to declare as such), you will _afterwards_ drop the legacy 32bit support for 64 kernels (I am deliberately using "management speak" here).

=> result: the industry should have to fair chance to deal with such a roadmap. Yes, it will hurt some people, but they will have enough time for their migration projects.

Example: I know that out of several millions of customers of webhosting, a very low number of them have some very old legacy 32bit software installed in their webspace. This cannot be supported forever. But the number of such cases is very small, and there just needs to be enough time for finding a solution for those few customers.

3) the next development kernel _after_ that LTS release can then immediately drop the 32bit support. Enterprise users should have enough time for planning, and for lots of internal projects modernizing their infrastructure. Usually, they will need to do this anyway in the long term.

A roadmap should be _reliable_ for planning, and there should be no "unexpected surprises". That's the most important requirements.

Notice: 5 years is what I know will very likely work for 1&1 Ionos. I cannot speak for other large-scale enterprise users, but I think most of them should be able to deal with suchalike intervals in a clear roadmap.


Addendum / side note: I know of cases where _critical_ / sometimes even proprietary 32bit enterprise software needs to run for several _decades_. Please don't drop KVM/qemu support for 32bit guests using _old_ (unchanged) 32bit kernels, which are just happen to run on 64bit hypervisors. But AFAICS that was not the intention of this initiative. Just keep the latter in mind as another (independent) requirement.


Cheers,

Thomas



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