I left macOS for Fedora when they removed the 32bit libs. Had to run lots of simulations on 32bit for embedded arm32, which I didn't wanted to run under qemu. (Tried debian first, but this was a clusterfuck. worse than windows)
Well, let's see what I can do now. linux is not as locked down as macOS, and providing my own multilib gcc and libs should be trivial.
dlachausse · 31m ago
If you need 32 bit support, your best bets are going to be Windows or NetBSD. Most other OSes are phasing it out.
Windows can't kill 32 bit support because even today a significant amount of software for the platform still depends on it, and that won't change any time soon.
NetBSD won't kill it, because support for tons of architectures and platforms is pretty much the reason why it exists. It supports platforms far more exotic and obsolete than 32 bit x86.
2OEH8eoCRo0 · 3h ago
Steam remains a roadblock since it is still 32 bit
dlachausse · 1h ago
> The main exception comes down to Steam and some games still being x86 32-bit although there is the option of using Flatpak packages or similar containerized solutions for those needing i686 software/apps.
This seems like a reasonable work around.
2OEH8eoCRo0 · 48m ago
Right but valve doesn't distribute the flatpak, it's 3rd party unofficial.
Well, let's see what I can do now. linux is not as locked down as macOS, and providing my own multilib gcc and libs should be trivial.
Windows can't kill 32 bit support because even today a significant amount of software for the platform still depends on it, and that won't change any time soon.
NetBSD won't kill it, because support for tons of architectures and platforms is pretty much the reason why it exists. It supports platforms far more exotic and obsolete than 32 bit x86.
This seems like a reasonable work around.