Subj : Re: Lightweight 32-bit distro
To   : lemonlime
From : tallship
Date : Thu Nov 21 2019 01:35 pm

On 21 Nov 2019, lemonlime said the following...
 
 le>  ta> Arch is also good, if you want to make something truly lightweight
 le>  ta> yourself, but they've dropped 32 bit support in the mainline, althoug
 le>  ta> it is still maintained in a different branch/website.
 le>  ta> 
 le> 
 le> Cool - yeah, that is the problem - 32 bit is disappearing fast. I was
 le> going to buy a cheap PC engines ALIX firewall box the other day when I
 le> realized it had a 32-bit only AMD geode CPU. Even pfsense doesn't
 le> maintain a 32bit line anymore :(
 le> 

Yes I've been a bit disappointed in the exceedingly smaller pools of support
for 32 bit machines. I felt the same when when the migration from 16 to 32bit
computing occurred, but it would have resulted in a lot of kruft to support
legacy computing application and system software.

For a long time there were concerns over Slackware not producing a 64bit
branch of the distro, and there was even a nod of approval from Patrick given
to Slamd64 Linux - the official unofficial 64bit port of Slackware. And then
AlienBoB rolled out multi-lib, which I have to say was something I just
didn't do and waited for the official Slackware64, then compiled my packages
with static 32bit libs for software that didn't have a 64bit version.

I just checked, and figuring that we all occasionally stop by garage sales,
you might happen upon an ultra cheap 32bit machine suitable for firewalling,
so thought I'd mention that OPNsense has a 32bit version (i386 arch)
available: https://opnsense.org/

I don't really see a point in thinking that a 64bit OS is preferable for a
firewall - it just takes more RAM and the 32 bit machines will do a fine job
- especially if you find yourself a $10 beater box at a garage sale :)

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