Appeal for 32-bit architecture.

22 respostas [Última entrada]
Piriponzolo
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Joined: 02/19/2016

Appeal for 32-bit architecture.

I try to get back on topic and I hope not to annoy you because this is not my intention, but only a proposal. I'm just a regular Trisquel user, I have asked a lot of questions in this forum when I've had problems and the help replies have always been courteous and friendly. From the day I discovered it, I immediately liked Trisquel for its beautiful IT philosophy and I ran the MINI installation both on a 64 bit desk pc and on an old 32 bit notebook, which I have owned since July 2007 and it still works fine after the maximum possible hardware upgrade. Now I would like to draw attention to the 32-bit architecture: now that support for the 32-bit release ends at the end of April, I am well aware that this takes effort, but why not continue to maintain only a MINI 32-bit release with LXDE on a Debian base yet? I don't know how many people like me use 32 bit Trisquel Mini, but I think there are a lot and if there was still a 32 bit release, all those people, and who knows how many more in the future, still using old machines around the world, would be very satisfied and grateful to Ruben and all the Trisquel staff not to have to buy another 64 bit hardware and not to take a leap into the unknown with who knows what other operating system, for example GNUINOS, which I'm still rather reluctant to try.
Dear Trisquel developers, please think also only of a MINI 32-bit release with LXDE! Maybe I'm asking too much, but please don't abandon the 32-bit architecture, which, forgive me, I consider even eco-sustainable! Thank you for the attention.

jxself
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Joined: 09/13/2010

The base distro is not the problem: People power is needed. Would you like to volunteer?

https://trisquel.info/en/forum/trisquel-11-released#comment-171407

Piriponzolo
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Joined: 02/19/2016

If I had the IT knowledge like you, very gladly.

prospero
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Joined: 05/20/2022

My knowledgeability is not currently adequate to be of any help with Trisquel 32-bit, unfortunately. However, these things usually can be learned. The task may be daunting, even for a seasoned maintainer, or it may mostly be a matter of getting into it and keeping up. So you may want to look into it and see for yourself: either you will get to understand why your dreams cannot be fulfilled, or you will eventually become a contributor to 32-bit Trisquel and a software freedom hero.

autumnlover
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Joined: 02/23/2013

As I already mentioned here my idea is to "fork" the security patches for 32-bit Ubuntu 18.04 ESM and extend the support of 32-bit Trisquel 9.

Exactly, what kind of work is expected to accomplish this? Please be specific.

jxself
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Joined: 09/13/2010

If you intend to do that within the context of Trisquel infrastructure and not your own project I imagine that some updates will be needed to pull things from the ESM repos. But the best people to have such a conversation with, depending on your level of seriousness, is our fearless leader Rubén and/or ark74.

prospero
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Joined: 05/20/2022

Just noticed that this Ubuntu blog post says 18.04 Bionic EOL is not April 30, as I thought, but May 31st 2023:

https://ubuntu.com//blog/18-04-end-of-standard-support

I do not have any Trisquel 9 system running, but it is probably the same EOL as Bionic.

EDIT: as it happens, the Ubuntu main page currently points to that blog post: https://ubuntu.com.

Ark74

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Desconectado
Joined: 07/15/2009

You can check the EOL for any trisquel system with,

trisquel-distro-info --supported -c -yeol

Sometimes dates are updated and we adjust as they do.

prospero
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Joined: 05/20/2022

Thanks for the tip!

Indeed today it says "Etiona 27".

NB: I had to install the distro-info package on this Aramo system installed from some early beta ISO.

Lugodunos
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Joined: 05/28/2022

Neither is it installed by default with the actual ISO, that's surprising.
Even though I might have forgotten it's existence when needed (if ever needed), I installed it.

Piriponzolo
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Joined: 02/19/2016

Hi to everyone!
I just downloaded today at 10:50 (Italian local time) on my old notebook, where I still have Trisquel mini 9.0.2 Etiona (i686), the following packages:
abrowser abrowser-locale-en abrowser-locale-it libwebp6 libwebpdemux2 libwebpmux3 linux-libc-dev

I would like to know if this is an act of afterthought in favour of maintaining the 32-bit architecture support. In this case I would be very happy.

jxself
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Joined: 09/13/2010

Trisquel 9 is based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) which according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_version_history#Table_of_versions still receives standard support until 2023-05-31.

andyprough
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Joined: 02/12/2015

13 days left.

The major FSF approved distros (Trisquel, Parabola, PureOS) have had to drop 32-bit because they bound themselves to Arch and Ubuntu upstream projects, each of which abandoned 32-bit awhile ago.

You can try to install two other FSF approved distros, Guix or Hyperbola, but both of them are quite difficult to install and maintain, and Hyperbola's packages are badly out of date so you wouldn't be gaining anything for your hard work. I don't know how well Guix would run on an old 32-bit system - it requires a lot of resources to run and may not even be able to be installed on a very old system.

The easiest way forward is to use a non-FSF approved libre distro that is based on Debian, Devuan-based GNUinos. Unfortunately the FSF distro approval process appears to be non-functional at this time, so it may be many years before GNUinos can get approved. But at least it seems to work and to give you security updates, and it does not include non-free software.

Lugodunos
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Joined: 05/28/2022

GNUinOS is not very developed, I think that the few ISO they have in their mirror (that are a great thing already) are all 64 bits.
I think that the only possibility for the near future, is to install a Linux based GNU distribution (like Devuan) and replace the blobed Linux by it's Linux-libre equivalent. I've never done this and I think that some here are a lot more competent in that field then I to talk furthermore about it.

avrtm
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Joined: 11/22/2019

https://www.gnuinos.org/mirror/chimaera/installer-iso/
There are downloadable iso images for i386 that seems to be up to date.

andyprough
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Joined: 02/12/2015

GNUinOS is actually pretty far along, having been maintained for a few years now. They use some really cool technology from Devuan called "amprolla" which allows GNUinOS to pull in packages from Devuan and Debian repositories while mixing them with GNUinOS' own packages. They've been releasing new ISO's on a regular basis.

fiorile
Desconectado
Joined: 07/16/2022

There's a 32-bit - unofficial - branch of Arch, I wonder why they are not making use of that.
Guix is not so difficult I think, and Hyperbola is out-dated for a very good reason which is the distribution going BSD.

I tried GNUinOS before reinstalling Trisquel, but somehow ethernet wasn't working, I remember prospero telling me the solution might just be giving the right time to the system but I doubt it was that in my particular situation.
Hopefully it's just a problem on my side and GNUinOS works; updating the iso images and packages is the main task but to be frank the web site makes it look like the project is dead - no news section like Trisquel, small web site, etc.

Gottfried
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Joined: 02/22/2022

I can never update Gnuinos, I can only update abrowser, which I installed through your help.

There is always the message:

An error occurred during the signature verification. The depot was not updated and the previous index files are used. GPG error:http://packages.gnuinos.org/merged chimaere InRelease: The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG DCD85D24E39C89BB Gnuinus Repository (Gnuinos GNU+Linux) <name at domain>

E: http://packages.gnuinos.org/merged chimaera InRelease is not (yet) available (The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG DCD85D24E39C89BB Gnuinus Repository (Gnuinos GNU+Linux)

what can I do?

Gottfried

prospero
Desconectado
Joined: 05/20/2022

I would re-install using the latest live ISO image of your choice:

https://www.gnuinos.org/mirror/chimaera/live

Gnuinos Chimaera is now quite stable and does a great job of including lightweight replacements for many a piece of bloatware.

jxself
Desconectado
Joined: 09/13/2010

It's now possible to run hurd on an x60, so GNU Guix is an option:
https:name at domain/110451493679262144

EDIT: The forums software's trying to hide it.

Assemble this into one line:

https://mastodon.social/
@janneke
@todon.nl/
110451493679262144

fiorile
Desconectado
Joined: 07/16/2022

Hopefully it will be available soon, I'd like to try it

Piriponzolo
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Joined: 02/19/2016

Trisquel 9.0.2 mini -i686 is still fantastic. I have downloaded today the last updates: cups cups-client cups-common cups-core-drivers cups-daemon cups-ipp-utils cups-ppdc cups-server-common libcups2 libcupscgi1 libcupsimage2 libcupsmime1 libcupsppdc1

It will be very difficult to me breaking off the 32 bit Trisquel 9.0.2 mini, it is still perfect! Thanks a lot.

fiorile
Desconectado
Joined: 07/16/2022

There should be a legacy ISO / separate libre legacy distribution like Q4OS or antiX in my opinion