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The whole discussion is about legacy systems. What about sustainability? Of course it's cheap to build ever more powerful systems and to ruin the planet with mo

The whole discussion is about legacy systems. What about sustainability? Of course it's cheap to build ever more powerful systems and to ruin the planet with more energy consumption and more waste. 32 bit systems are good enough for many purposes. By law of physics they could be built using less resources during production and during their lifetime. Don't tell me it's such a small change that it does not matter. That's the attitude everywhere, and the results can be seen. Those living at the US west coast experienced the fires, not to mentio Australia. Myself I used to ski 3 months 20 years ago, maybe 1 month in a warm winter. Now I hardly get over 3 weeks, less than 1 week in a warm winter.

ashneo76 6y ago
I 1000% agree. Not everything needs 64bit. This is forced manufactured obsolescence
- WJW 6y ago
  Linux is pretty much the original open source project. Just fork the repo and maintain 32 bit code yourself if you want to keep it.
  - hnlmorg 6y ago
    > Linux is pretty much the original open source project It's not. GNU pre-dates Linux by nearly 10 years. But even if you're talking strictly about kernels, 386BSD and Hurd were started before Linux. > Just fork the repo and maintain 32 bit code yourself if you want to keep it. I've often noticed -- and not just on here -- that when commenters prefix "just" to a sentence, the work involved is usually non-trivial.
    - WJW 6y ago
      > I've often noticed -- and not just on here -- that when commenters prefix "just" to a sentence, the work involved is usually non-trivial. That was the joke, yes. The post I was responding to was complaining about "forced" obsolescence while there is nothing of the sort. Upstream maintainers want to drop some legacy code so they can spend more time on newer machines. GP apparently does not want to upgrade and is now complaining that other people don't do the non-trivial work of keeping 32 bit linux updated for free.
      - arp242 6y ago
        Maintaining a 32bit Linux fork which includes just security patches and (critical) bugfixes would actually be a lot less work than keep maintaining 32bit support for all new feature development. Maintaining a "32bit LTS" fork of Linux like this would probably be pretty viable.
        the_why_of_y 6y ago
        Keep in mind that in this space, "security patch" might come in the form of rewriting the architecture specific virtual memory implementation... https://lwn.net/Articles/741878/ https://lwn.net/Articles/741878/
        arp242 6y ago
        You'd hope that we're finished with working around all the CPU bugs now, but yeah, it's not necessarily trivial, and the longer the fork exists, the harder it will be to backport patches. But I can see how you can build a business maintaining a Linux LTS (there are businesses offering Rails LTS, Microsoft offers updates for Windows XP if you pay), so there's some precedent here.
    - carlhjerpe 6y ago
      It's also nontrivial for the people currently maintaining the Linux kernel. I interpret the "just" as a way to hint that forcing someone else to keep doing something for free, you could just do it yourself.
- diegocg 6y ago
  You could argue the same for 16 bit CPUs. If the vast majority of CPUs sold are 64 bits, we will to a point (we are already halfway there) where 64 bit CPUs could be cheaper (more competence and variety) and even more energy efficient.
  - pantalaimon 6y ago
    linux never ran on 16 bit CPUs. that being said, CPUs like the 8051 are still very much alive today.
    - cesarb 6y ago
      > linux never ran on 16 bit CPUs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embeddable_Linux_Kernel_Subset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embeddable_Linux_Kernel_Subset
      - ohazi 6y ago
        This was a toy project that was never mainlined
        usr1106 6y ago
        It doesn't need to mainlained in the same Linux upstream to be serious. I am not familiar with it to say whether it really wasn't that useful for inherent reasons or whether vendors in that space were just more lucky to defend their proprietary solutions than the (mainline) Linux competitors.
  - usr1106 6y ago
    While 16 bit CPUs are good for many purposes, these are not the same purposes where you have run Linux ever and where 32 bit is currently being replaced by 64 bit. So the analogy is not helpful. Maybe 64 bit CPUs can get more resource efficient than older 32 bit models. But that's a misdirected use of resources if you use such technolgy to make 32 bit CPUs obsolete. With the same technology 32 bit will always use less resource-demanding than 64 bit. And the claim was that 32 bit has so many use cases (basically all phones and many PCs) that economics of scale are possible. Of course the nonsense model that you don't pay for Internet services directly, but use Javascript and a lot of other bloat software to run advertisements on your phone to pay via a massive detour is not an energy-efficient approach.
tutfbhuf 6y ago
But how much energy and man power would it cost to support 32-bit CPUs longterm in all software?
MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
Consider that CPUs on newer nodes consume less energy. There are special embedded low-power chips (eg TI 16 bit MSP), but they are NOT running Linux, and they never will. They couldn't reach their power targets running Linux, not even close. So I'm not sure obsolete designs being manufactured on old process node being kept alive is a net win. The special low-power cores are unaffected, as they are not running Linux anyway, and the ones that do aren't particularly low power. There is a sweet spot for low cost chips, I think its 40nm due to mask costs, manufacturing gets exponentially more expensive from that point on, which is the reason they haven't upgraded. Anyone knows if there are signs this cost is coming down over time?
- amelius 6y ago
  > Consider that CPUs on newer nodes consume less energy. I think the main point is to use 32bit on new nodes too. Using 32bit instead of 64bit is always more energy efficient unless perhaps you really need 64bit for your application, which most applications don't.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    Why do you think it's always more energy efficient?
    - amelius 6y ago
      Because less transistors need to switch.
      - viraptor 6y ago
        I'm honestly curious how that plays out in practice. 64b Intel CPUs can run in 32b mode. If we count actual switching then we would end up with ~same usage. But in 64b mode it gives us both longer pointers and offsets it with fewer instructions on vector operations. I could not find any actual paper with real use case comparison. Have you got one?
Rochus 6y ago
> 32 bit systems are good enough for many purposes For all purposes actually in my case. The best notebook I've ever bought was/is the HP EliteBook 2530p; it runs 12 hours on battery, more than I need for my work day. I bought a new one in 2009 and a couple of used ones and parts since then. Most of my software and firmware development happens on this machine (Linux i386; I also have to support macOS though). It always works, never had downtime (I can replace parts within minutes if need be). Even Netflix works. And of course also all the embedded systems I produce are 32 bit, about half of them with Linux (the others are microcontrollers).
WJW 6y ago
There is a real irony that the same post simultaneously complains about a CPU using slightly more power and also about not being able to ski for three months a year any more. Ski resorts and the attendant infrastructure like lifts and piste preparation machines are prodigiously expensive in terms of energy used per person.
- usr1106 6y ago
  I was not talking about downhill skiing. I have not done more than 5 hours of downhill skiing during the last 20 years. (Did a bit more when I was younger.) I do only cross-country skiing. Could also call it an irony that if mention a concept with 2 variants, the reader automatically assumes the more commercial, the more industrialized, the more polluting variant today.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  Because on the planetary scale it is a bigger deal than ski resorts (affordable only to the citizen of the first world anyway).
viraptor 6y ago
> What about sustainability? Of course it's cheap to build ever more powerful systems and to ruin the planet with more energy consumption and more waste. Are you sure that running two production lines and supporting both of them long term is more sustainable than killing one of them? > By law of physics they could be built using less resources during production and during their lifetime. If you want to go that way, why not even more efficient arm cortex?
- pantalaimon 6y ago
  there is more than one manufacturer to produce CPUs, so there are already more than two production lines
  - viraptor 6y ago
    I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Regardless of the number of existing manufacturers, different architecture means more designers, validation, production pipeline and other inefficiencies. And that's best case of using the same wafers as your other products and not building a separate literal production line.

ashneo76 6y ago

I 1000% agree. Not everything needs 64bit. This is forced manufactured obsolescence

WJW 6y ago
Linux is pretty much the original open source project. Just fork the repo and maintain 32 bit code yourself if you want to keep it.
- hnlmorg 6y ago
  > Linux is pretty much the original open source project It's not. GNU pre-dates Linux by nearly 10 years. But even if you're talking strictly about kernels, 386BSD and Hurd were started before Linux. > Just fork the repo and maintain 32 bit code yourself if you want to keep it. I've often noticed -- and not just on here -- that when commenters prefix "just" to a sentence, the work involved is usually non-trivial.
  - WJW 6y ago
    > I've often noticed -- and not just on here -- that when commenters prefix "just" to a sentence, the work involved is usually non-trivial. That was the joke, yes. The post I was responding to was complaining about "forced" obsolescence while there is nothing of the sort. Upstream maintainers want to drop some legacy code so they can spend more time on newer machines. GP apparently does not want to upgrade and is now complaining that other people don't do the non-trivial work of keeping 32 bit linux updated for free.
    - arp242 6y ago
      Maintaining a 32bit Linux fork which includes just security patches and (critical) bugfixes would actually be a lot less work than keep maintaining 32bit support for all new feature development. Maintaining a "32bit LTS" fork of Linux like this would probably be pretty viable.
      - the_why_of_y 6y ago
        Keep in mind that in this space, "security patch" might come in the form of rewriting the architecture specific virtual memory implementation... https://lwn.net/Articles/741878/ https://lwn.net/Articles/741878/
        arp242 6y ago
        You'd hope that we're finished with working around all the CPU bugs now, but yeah, it's not necessarily trivial, and the longer the fork exists, the harder it will be to backport patches. But I can see how you can build a business maintaining a Linux LTS (there are businesses offering Rails LTS, Microsoft offers updates for Windows XP if you pay), so there's some precedent here.
  - carlhjerpe 6y ago
    It's also nontrivial for the people currently maintaining the Linux kernel. I interpret the "just" as a way to hint that forcing someone else to keep doing something for free, you could just do it yourself.
diegocg 6y ago
You could argue the same for 16 bit CPUs. If the vast majority of CPUs sold are 64 bits, we will to a point (we are already halfway there) where 64 bit CPUs could be cheaper (more competence and variety) and even more energy efficient.
- pantalaimon 6y ago
  linux never ran on 16 bit CPUs. that being said, CPUs like the 8051 are still very much alive today.
  - cesarb 6y ago
    > linux never ran on 16 bit CPUs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embeddable_Linux_Kernel_Subset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embeddable_Linux_Kernel_Subset
    - ohazi 6y ago
      This was a toy project that was never mainlined
      - usr1106 6y ago
        It doesn't need to mainlained in the same Linux upstream to be serious. I am not familiar with it to say whether it really wasn't that useful for inherent reasons or whether vendors in that space were just more lucky to defend their proprietary solutions than the (mainline) Linux competitors.
- usr1106 6y ago
  While 16 bit CPUs are good for many purposes, these are not the same purposes where you have run Linux ever and where 32 bit is currently being replaced by 64 bit. So the analogy is not helpful. Maybe 64 bit CPUs can get more resource efficient than older 32 bit models. But that's a misdirected use of resources if you use such technolgy to make 32 bit CPUs obsolete. With the same technology 32 bit will always use less resource-demanding than 64 bit. And the claim was that 32 bit has so many use cases (basically all phones and many PCs) that economics of scale are possible. Of course the nonsense model that you don't pay for Internet services directly, but use Javascript and a lot of other bloat software to run advertisements on your phone to pay via a massive detour is not an energy-efficient approach.

tutfbhuf 6y ago

But how much energy and man power would it cost to support 32-bit CPUs longterm in all software?

MrBuddyCasino 6y ago

Consider that CPUs on newer nodes consume less energy. There are special embedded low-power chips (eg TI 16 bit MSP), but they are NOT running Linux, and they never will. They couldn't reach their power targets running Linux, not even close. So I'm not sure obsolete designs being manufactured on old process node being kept alive is a net win. The special low-power cores are unaffected, as they are not running Linux anyway, and the ones that do aren't particularly low power. There is a sweet spot for low cost chips, I think its 40nm due to mask costs, manufacturing gets exponentially more expensive from that point on, which is the reason they haven't upgraded. Anyone knows if there are signs this cost is coming down over time?

amelius 6y ago
> Consider that CPUs on newer nodes consume less energy. I think the main point is to use 32bit on new nodes too. Using 32bit instead of 64bit is always more energy efficient unless perhaps you really need 64bit for your application, which most applications don't.
- viraptor 6y ago
  Why do you think it's always more energy efficient?
  - amelius 6y ago
    Because less transistors need to switch.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      I'm honestly curious how that plays out in practice. 64b Intel CPUs can run in 32b mode. If we count actual switching then we would end up with ~same usage. But in 64b mode it gives us both longer pointers and offsets it with fewer instructions on vector operations. I could not find any actual paper with real use case comparison. Have you got one?

Rochus 6y ago

> 32 bit systems are good enough for many purposes For all purposes actually in my case. The best notebook I've ever bought was/is the HP EliteBook 2530p; it runs 12 hours on battery, more than I need for my work day. I bought a new one in 2009 and a couple of used ones and parts since then. Most of my software and firmware development happens on this machine (Linux i386; I also have to support macOS though). It always works, never had downtime (I can replace parts within minutes if need be). Even Netflix works. And of course also all the embedded systems I produce are 32 bit, about half of them with Linux (the others are microcontrollers).

WJW 6y ago

There is a real irony that the same post simultaneously complains about a CPU using slightly more power and also about not being able to ski for three months a year any more. Ski resorts and the attendant infrastructure like lifts and piste preparation machines are prodigiously expensive in terms of energy used per person.

usr1106 6y ago
I was not talking about downhill skiing. I have not done more than 5 hours of downhill skiing during the last 20 years. (Did a bit more when I was younger.) I do only cross-country skiing. Could also call it an irony that if mention a concept with 2 variants, the reader automatically assumes the more commercial, the more industrialized, the more polluting variant today.
SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
Because on the planetary scale it is a bigger deal than ski resorts (affordable only to the citizen of the first world anyway).

viraptor 6y ago

> What about sustainability? Of course it's cheap to build ever more powerful systems and to ruin the planet with more energy consumption and more waste. Are you sure that running two production lines and supporting both of them long term is more sustainable than killing one of them? > By law of physics they could be built using less resources during production and during their lifetime. If you want to go that way, why not even more efficient arm cortex?

pantalaimon 6y ago
there is more than one manufacturer to produce CPUs, so there are already more than two production lines
- viraptor 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Regardless of the number of existing manufacturers, different architecture means more designers, validation, production pipeline and other inefficiencies. And that's best case of using the same wafers as your other products and not building a separate literal production line.