The rolling release of openSUSE Tumbleweed has mentioned the supported CPU architecture to x86-64-v2, but it is very embarrassing that the split x86_32 package archive is facing a situation of no one to maintain.

In August, OpenSUSE developers discussed increasing the level of support for the x86_64 microarchitecture, eventually limiting the minimum CPU to x86-64-v2. x86-64-v2 is roughly an Intel Nehalem or AMD Bulldozer-era processor that includes the CMPXCHG16B, LAHF-SAHF, POPCNT, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, and SSSE3 instruction sets.

As for the x86_32-bit part, the OpenSUSE team has admitted that the i586 device is a declining past tense, abandoned the official support for the Tumbleweed i586 build, and decided that from January next year, the Tumbleweed i586/i686 will be transformed into a version supported by the OpenSUSE community .

However, this week’s openSUSE release engineering meeting had a depressing news: even though the “openSUSE:Factory:LegacyX86” archaic x86 archive was created for openSUSE Tumbleweed,No one in the community is willing to stand up and take responsibility x86_32 package’sMaintenance and packaging work.

Jiri Slaby volunteered, but that was when x86_64 was popular, and I don’t think Jiri is interested in maintaining i586; Felix Miata mentioned something, but didn’t explicitly commit to doing it either. So the problem could persist for weeks or even longer.

Jiri, mentioned at the meeting, even bluntly stated in a reply email that “it is recommended to abandon the x86_32 architecture”:

As I explicitly wrote in my email, I never intended to maintain ix86. I also asked if there was maintenance, but no hands were raised. Does that mean no one is interested and we can drop the port? (Hint: now is a good time to say goodbye.)

Maybe when the project fails to build at all, it proves that no one really cares about the architecture.

So far, the openSUSE Tumbleweed project still lacks capable and willing people to take over the maintenance and testing/QA of i586/i686 packages. However, this is also quite common, and the community will raise objections when Linux distributions or other open source projects want to drop support for older hardware. Of course, everyone is usually vocally opposed to it, and there are few conservatives who are willing to take action to protect the products of the old era.