[OpenIndiana-discuss] 32-bit support in OpenIndiana Hipster (Alexander Pyhalov)

[jay at m5.chicago.il.us]

Centuries ago, Nostradamus predicted that Alexander Pyhalov <alp at rsu.ru> would write on Mon, 16 Feb 2015 13:06:06 +0300:

> 
> Hello.
> 
> We currently support (in some way) 32-bit systems. We avoid shipping
> 64-binaries in default path or use isaexec for such things.  But do
> we really need it? I haven't seen PC (not speaking about server)
> without 64-bit CPU for at least 8 years.
> 
> Dropping support for 32-bit systems will allow us to port Oracle
> sources easier. Potentially, this solves time_t overflow. We could
> think about largefile support less.
> 
> What are the cons of keeping support for 32-bit systems? I don't see 
> much. If you see them, please, speak now.
> 
> I'm inclined to make changes, breaking 32-bit systems only after next 
> ISO snapshot. Of course, 32-bit libraries will be preserved.
>

Please do not drop support for 32-bit systems.  I own almost nothing
but 32-bit systems.  The main computer on which I do almost all of my
work (the computer on which I am writing these words at this moment,
and which is also my webserver, and my mailserver, and my ftp server)
is a 32-bit machine.  In fact, it is because it is a 32-bit machine
that I am working on an OpenSolaris-derived system; had it been a
64-bit machine, I would almost certainly be running Linux on it.  The
story goes as follows: my main computer is a multiboot system, on
which many different operating systems are installed.  My business
(computer consulting, mostly training) requires me to be knowledgeable
of many different systems, therefore I have set up my computer so that
I can boot into whatever system I need to be knowledgeable about this
week.  I wanted certain directories -- e.g., /var/spool/mail and
/home/jay and /var/www/htdocs and /gnu/src -- to be equally accessible
to all of my operating systems, so that I could bring up one system,
do some work, reboot into another system, and then continue doing work
picking up exactly where I had left off.  So I had to pick a
filesystem for /var/spool/mail and /home/jay et cetera that would be
supported by Linux and FreeBSD and NetBSD and Solaris (plus I have
Haiku and Plan 9 systems, but don't do serious work on either of
them).  ZFS was the only choice.  FreeBSD supports ext2fs, but Solaris
does not.  Linux supports ufs, both the Solaris and BSD variants, but
only readonly; write support is experimental, has been experimental
for the past ten years and shows no signs of ever becoming any less
experimental.  I tried to write on one of my Solaris ufs filesystems
from Linux, and the write appeared to be successful, but it rendered
the entire filesystem inaccessible to Solaris when I rebooted into
Solaris, this is absolutely true, I had to reinstall the Solaris
system.  Unlike FreeBSD, NetBSD, and every operating system derived
from Solaris, Linux did not support ZFS natively, but it was possible
to compile and install kernel modules that supported it (there is also
zfs-fuse, which I rejected because I wanted support at the kernel
level).  And that is what I did.  I created a zpool, put my home
directory and all those other directories on ZFS filesystems, and
installed ZFS on my OpenSuSE system.  OpenSuSE was what I mostly used,
because most of my consulting business was (and is) Linux-based.

Only several days after I made this irrevocable decision did I realize
that I could no longer use my OpenSuSE system for any serious work
whatsoever.  Apparently adding ZFS support to a Linux kernel is a very
bad idea on a 32-bit computer with 256 megabytes of memory.  My 32-bit
Schillix system (which is what I am using now), although it installs
root onto UFS, has no problem with ZFS.  But the ZFS drivers on a
32-bit Linux system cripple it.  Within hours after rebooting into my
OpenSuSE system, it invariably becomes unusable.  Apparently, using
the ZFS filesystems requires so much memory that after a few hours the
computer is doing nothing but page back and forth between memory and
the swap device.  Things get slower, and slower, and when you think
they can get no slower, they get even slower, and in a very short time
nothing runs, even the mouse cursor freezes, and there is nothing to
do but power-cycle and reboot.  I had to stop using my OpenSuSE system
and start doing everything on my Schillix system.  So, as I mentioned
earlier, the reason I am using an OpenSolaris-derived operating system
on my computer, is that it is a 32-bit computer.


                        Jay F. Shachter
                        6424 N Whipple St
                        Chicago IL  60645-4111
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                                jay at m5.chicago.il.us
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                        "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur"