[OpenIndiana-discuss] 32-bit support in OpenIndiana Hipster

[Bruce Lilly]

There's something wrong with this picture...

Although OI inherited isaexec and *could* ship both 32- and 64-bit
executables and libraries,
presently only 32-bit libraries are available in many cases (e.g. gamin).
Also, the default
compilation on 64-bit systems produces 32-bit executables (and libraries).

So if your goal is really to drop 32-bit support (and thereby alienate
those with 32-bit
systems to support), you first need to do two things:
1. rebuild all available libraries and executables in 64-bit mode
2. change the default compilation mode for 64-bit systems
The 32-bit time_t issue won't go away until both of those are addressed AND
all existing
64-bit systems have been fully updated (and 32-bit systems replaced).

On the other hand, to properly utilize the attractive feature of
transparently supporting both
32-bit and 64-bit systems via isaexec, and thereby possibly attract (rather
than alienate)
users, two things need to be addressed:
1. time_t (via illumos; this shouldn't be rocket science -- both NetBSD and
OpenBSD have
    64-bit time_t on both 32- and 64-bit systems)
2. actually take advantage of isaexec by producing and distributing both
32- and 64-bit
    libraries and executables
After those issues are addressed, changing the default compilation mode for
64-bit
systems should be painless (and is expected to provide performance benefits
on
64-bit i86 platforms).
It would also be nice to reduce the (physical) memory requirement,
especially of the OI
installer which uniquely (compared to BSD and most Linux installers)
crashes on
modest-memory (e.g. 512 MB) systems.  Such systems (including low-power
ones)
are fine for many uses which do not themselves require much memory or CPU
power,
such as ntp servers.

On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 12:03 PM, Alexander Pyhalov <alp at rsu.ru> wrote:

> On 02/16/2015 13:06, Alexander Pyhalov wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> Today I've shipped PostgreSQL 9.5. AMD64 version still doesn't have
> PL/Perl support, because we ship 32-bit Perl. The next Perl version which
> we ship will be 64-bit only. I don't think there's much benefit in
> supporting 32bit systems. So, consider this an official statement.
>
> The next OI Hipster snapshot will no pretend to support 32bit CPUS.
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Alexander Pyhalov,
> system administrator of Southern Federal University IT department
>
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