Hi Andrew,
On 16/3/23 01:57, Andrew Randrianasulu wrote:
> Looking at https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/8.0
> <https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/8.0>
>
> ===
> System emulation on 32-bit x86 and ARM hosts has been deprecated. The
> QEMU project no longer considers 32-bit x86 and ARM support for system
> emulation to be an effective use of its limited resources, and thus
> intends to discontinue.
>
> ==
>
> well, I guess arguing from memory-consuption point on 32 bit x86 hosts
> (like my machine where I run 32 bit userspace on 64 bit kernel) is not
If you use a 64-bit kernel, then your host is 64-bit :)
No, I mean *kernel* is 64 bit yet userspace (glibc, X , ...) all 32bit. So, qemu naturally will be 32-bit binary on my system.
host: hardware where you run QEMU
guest: what is run within QEMU
Running 32-bit *guest* on your 64-bit *host* is still supported.
We don't plan to support running 32-bit WinXP x86 (guest) on 32-bit
Raspberry Pi 2 (host) for example.
> going anywhere, but what about 32bit userspace on Android tablets,
> either via Limbo emulator or qemu itself in Termux?
*System* emulation [on 32-bit hosts] is deprecated. User emulation
(such linux-user) is not. For example, you can still run 64-bit x86_64
Linux binaries on a 32-bit ARM Raspberry Pi.
Well, unrooted Android does not allow you to just load some perfectly fine kernel module, so user-space emulation can't do all things system-level one can. I also ran qemu-system-ppc on Huawei Matepad T8 (32 bit Android, too) for emulating old mac os 9. Yes, I can wait 10 min per guest boot. Fedora 36 armhf boots even slower on emulation!
> At least I hope it will be not *actively* (intentionally) broken, just
> ...unsupported (so users who know how to run git revert still will get
> their build for some more time).
Unsupported code almost always unintentionally end bit-rotting...
Well, sometimes simple patch restores functionality. I patched for example olive-editor to run on 32 bit, and before this intel embree (raytracing kernels for Lux renderer). So, _sometimes_ it really not that costly. While if this CI thing really runs per-commit and thrown away each result ... may be letting interested users to build things on their own machines (and share patches, if they develop them, publicly) actually good idea.
I hope this is clearer.
Regards,
Phil.