From: jgoerzen@complete.org 
  
 On Wed, Aug 13 2025, Aryan Karamtoth wrote: 
 > i386 has been phased out a long time ago by many software projects as well 
 as 
 > operating systems. Even in Debian, it was still on life support and now 
 that 
 > life support is gone. 
  
 Without getting into a debate over whether i386 should or should not be 
 dropped, as someone that runs other 32-bit archs, I wonder why armhf and 
 armel weren't similarly targeted? 
  
 This isn't a disagreement, but an honest question. 
  
 I don't know that most of the software Debian includes would be highly 
 opinionated about particular 32-bit archs.  I suppose if compilers were 
 actively dropping support for i386, that would make a difference.  (I 
 guess then I'd still have to wonder why they are dropping i386 but not 
 armhf) 
  
 I note that armel will also be dropped for forky, leaving armhf as our 
 only remaining 32-bit released arch.  (And forcing me to replace my 
 Raspberry Pi B+ boards that are still happily running snapclient around 
 my house) 
  
 I don't have statistics at hand, so I can only speculate: I know that 
 armhf has been wildly popular due to Raspberry Pis, and traditionally 
 Raspberry Pi OS used it even for their 64-bit capable models.  In Debian 
 though, it is only required on the series 2 models (the 0/1 can't run 
 armhf and has to run armel which is very slow, and 3 and above can run 
 arm64, though most don't on the 3s).  On the other hand, i386 has been 
 absolutely everywhere for many many years (roughly 1985 to 2009, when 
 Windows defaulted to 64-bit). 
  
 The older (generally pre-4) Pis have some favorable characteristics, 
 particularly around power and cooling.  They can often be powered by 
 cell phone chargers and have little need for active cooling. 
  
 - John 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)