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> i386 is no longer supported as a regular architecture: there is no official kernel and no Debian installer for i386 systems. The i386 architecture is now only

> i386 is no longer supported as a regular architecture: there is no official kernel and no Debian installer for i386 systems. The i386 architecture is now only intended to be used on a 64-bit (amd64) CPU. Users running i386 systems should not upgrade to trixie. Instead, Debian recommends either reinstalling them as amd64, where possible, or retiring the hardware. Impressive that i386 support made it all the way to August 2025. I have Debian 10 Buster running on a Pentium 3 which only EOL'd last year in June 2024. It's still useful on that hardware and I'm grateful support continued as long as it did! OpenBSD still supports i386 for those looking for a modern OS on old 32-bit hardware.

zozbot234 1y ago
Hopefully i386 (or perhaps a new i386-like port with added support for 64-bit time values) can move to the unofficial Debian Ports infrastructure for Debian 14 (forky) or Debian 15 (duke). Debian Ports has a m68k port, so supporting one for i386 shouldn't be a huge problem.
- 3eb7988a1663 1y ago
  To what end? Outside of sheer nostalgia if you are running ancient hardware, you probably have a bespoke application which requires that environment. Either you cannot change for hard technical, compliance, or just fear of the unknown. Firewall it from the internet and continue to run whatever release last worked. I am not happy about unnecessary ewaste, but an i386 almost certainly has and order of magnitude less horsepower than a raspberry pi or N100.
  - michaelt 1y ago
    My Linux machine is very modern, but I still need i386 architecture support installed, because Steam requires 32-bit support. And Steam requires 32-bit support so people can play 15-year-old games. (Admittedly, the 32-bit support Ubuntu ships is less than a full OS and you can't install Ubuntu on a 32-bit machine these days)
    - progval 1y ago
      So you have an amd64 CPU and Debian's "i386" packages will keep working on it. As per the release notes: > The i386 architecture is now only intended to be used on a 64-bit (amd64) CPU.
      - herewulf 1y ago
        Maybe it's one of those games that runs too fast if the CPU isn't clocked at 33 MHz. ;) It would probably take a few days to start Steam on one of those considering its load times on current hardware.
    - boomboomsubban 1y ago
      I don't think this is the case anymore, see https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/releases/wine-9.0#wow64 https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/releases/wine-9.0#wow6... though it's not the default everywhere.
    - duskwuff 1y ago
      Debian is doing basically the same thing Ubuntu is with regards to i386. Packages are still being built for the architecture, but i386 systems aren't supported, and there's no 32-bit kernel package. e.g. notice that i386 is still listed at the bottom of https://packages.debian.org/trixie/bash https://packages.debian.org/trixie/bash
  - KennyBlanken 1y ago
    According to Passmark the Pentinum 4 1.3Ghz is 55 times slower than a Raspberry Pi 5, so I'd guess it's at least two orders of magnitude. The original Pi is 16 times faster than a P4 1.3Ghz... You can recycle e-waste (and yes, I know SOME e-waste ends up in China/India/etc. Not all does.) The e-waste is of substantially less concern than the massive difference in carbon footprint from power consumption.
    - bobmcnamara 1y ago
      > The original Pi is 16 times faster than a P4 1.3Ghz... It isn't. Had both. ~700MHz mostly in-order ARM 11 without SIMD. Worked with these a lot. ..vs.. 1.3GHz out-of-order with SIMD
  - shasheene 1y ago
    Debian's tagline is the "universal operating system". It's a distribution with active ports on a very large number of architectures [1], even incredibly obscure ones. The goal of universal compatibility that separates the Debian project from commercial software and even other open-source projects. The legacy x86 architecture is still far more popular than some that platforms that Debian advertises as having official support for and there has been x86 based processors manufactured for niche applications until recently, eg, AMD Geode and others. I find it really unfortunate Debian Project is removing official support for new x86 installations. The silver lining is it seems like they'll be an unofficial port and it's likely niche distributions like MX Linux and AntiX will maintain their own builds. It would be ideal if open-source can develop stronger mechanims to keep support for the large numbers of these relatively niche architectures (eg, through increased usage of emulation over real hardware). [1] https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures
- munchlax 1y ago
  It still exists but without any official iso or installer. If that's all there's to it, you can still use debootstrap, compile a kernel, and point the root parameter to your shiny new install. If the official i386 arch was built with instructions that your hardware doesn't support, tough cookies.
  - tremon 1y ago
    If the official i386 arch was built with instructions that your hardware doesn't support, tough cookies While theoretically possible, that would only happen on processors older than 30 years. Debian's i386 architecture still uses -march=i686 as its baseline compiler target, which is the venerable Pentium Pro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P6_(microarchitecture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P6_(microarchitecture)
    - avhon1 1y ago
      I have AMD Geode hardware circa 2007 (18 years old) that only has partial support for i686. Requires a true 3/4/586 kernel.
      - tremon 1y ago
        Not sure why you are downvoted, I guess people don't believe this is true. To confirm: The AMD Geode LX was a <5W 32-bit x86 processor which did not support SSE instructions, and is therefore not fully i686 compatible. According to Wikipedia, it was produced until 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amd_geode#AMD_Geode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amd_geode#AMD_Geode It was used in the OLPC XO-1. The Cisco ASA line of firewalls also used Geode processors at least at some point in its lifetime.
- tremon 1y ago
  The i386 architecture hasn't been dropped, it is still available in the archives to support 32-bit applications. The major change is that there no longer is a 32-bit kernel in the archive (the package linux-image-686 is no more). But most packages are still available in their i386 versions: $ curl -s http://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | zgrep ^Package: | wc -l 68737 $ curl -s http://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz | zgrep ^Package: | wc -l 66958
- pabs3 1y ago
  In case anyone wants to do that, here is the doc for new ports: https://wiki.debian.org/PortsDocs/New https://wiki.debian.org/PortsDocs/New
  - zozbot234 1y ago
    Much of that information has to do with creating a new hardware port from scratch. The i386 support just needs to be "demoted" to the Debian ports infrastructure once it's officially scheduled to get dropped from the main Debian repository (which could well happen starting either in Debian forky or duke), and this can probably be done with some special handling. (Answering the "to what end?" question, a lot of 32bit-only hardware is still available and dirt cheap in the second-hand market (e.g. early "netbooks"), much of it quite well-built and enjoyable to use. While such hardware can no longer realistically browse the "modern" web, it can still find a lot of use for more lightweight tasks, including acting as a "thin client" for more powerful machines.)
    - pabs3 1y ago
      Well, the existing i386 port is going to remain as-is for supporting old software (especially games) (but the CPU baseline will likely get increased), it isn't going to be removed, so you would need a new architecture for 32bit-only hardware. Since i386 is not going to do the 2038 transition either (since that would break the ABI), also you would need to either make a new ABI for the new port, or do the 2038 transition for it too. Over time more and more 32-bit bugs will get introduced, so there will be lots of maintenance work to do too.
      - zozbot234 1y ago
        > ...it isn't going to be removed I had seen conflicting information about this, though nothing official. I suppose we'll know more once some actual release planning happens for forky, which might take some time.
NewJazz 1y ago
Well, isn't there an additional year or so of support for old stable? So beyond 2025.
- abhinavk 1y ago
  Buster is supported until June 2028.
  - NewJazz 1y ago
    Thanks, I assume some of that is sort of extended, asterisked support though?
    - pabs3 1y ago
      Games are unsupported, and a bunch of other packages: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Bullseye https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Bullseye https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Using#Check_for_unsupported_packages https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Using#Check_for_unsupported_pack...
  - b112 1y ago
    Not by Debian it isn't. https://www.debian.org/releases/ https://www.debian.org/releases/ Buster has not been supported by Debian for many years. Buster LTS was EOL last summer. Note that LTS is supported by volunteers via a non-profit, not Debian (though they do a good job). ELTS is paid support, again not by Debian. Do look at Debian's wiki for more info on support timeframes, and what LTS and ELTS means.
    - abhinavk 1y ago
      I was meaning to write Bookworm. Bookworm is the last to support i386 kernel and is supported until June 2028.
    - pabs3 1y ago
      Freexian is for-profit, and all the LTS/ELTS contributors are Debian maintainers, and LTS is part of Debian, while ELTS is publicly available too, but in an external archive. https://wiki.debian.org/LTS https://wiki.debian.org/LTS https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Team https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Team https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Extended https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Extended https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Funding https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Funding
badsectoracula 1y ago
AFAICT this refers to Debian support, the Linux kernel does support 32bit CPUs though only since the original Pentium (excluding some clones).
- matja 1y ago
  The latest kernel as of today still supports the 486SX ! (https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v6.17-rc1/arch/x86/Kconfig.cpu#L49-L54 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v6.17-rc1/arch/x86/Kc...)
esaym 1y ago
Are you confusing "386" with 32bit? 686 is the normal 32bit arch. 386 is something from the 1980's right?
- NewJazz 1y ago
  AIUI Debian kept the i386 name for the arch even as their 32 bit requirements evolved.
- bowsamic 1y ago
  i386 is the most common term used for 32 bit x86 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-32 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-32
- accrual 1y ago
  When distros mention i386 support they often actually refer to i586 or i686, yes. True i386 support would mean compatible with the original Intel 386 processor from 1985. The 486 added a few additional instructions in 1989 but things really changed with the Pentium in 1993 - that gave us i586 which is the bare minimum for most modern software today. Much software can still run on regular Pentiums today if compiled for it, but SSE2 optimizations requires at least a Pentium 4 or Core CPUs instead. I play with retro PCs often and found OpenBSD's i386 target stopped supporting real 386 CPUs after the 4.1 release, and dropped support for i486 somewhat recently in 6.8. It now requires at least a Pentium class CPU, i586, though the arch is still referred to as i386 likely because it's a common proxy for "32-bit".
  - chungy 1y ago
    Debian 3.0 was the last version that ran on the 80386 processor proper, but even as the CPU requirements for the "i386" architecture moved up to the 486, then Pentium, then Pentium II, the name stuck around. Partly from inertia, partly to not break the entire existing mirror infrastructure.
  - zozbot234 1y ago
    The Linux kernel also requires at least i486 now. AIUI that decision had to do with smoothing out multicore/SMP support - which is a bit silly because no real 80386 systems in common use are even SMP, let alone multicore. But anyway.
winrid 1y ago
Man, I thought I was behind using a P3 in like 2007 lol. You can get something 100x faster for $1 :D
- avhon1 1y ago
  Debian (and many other distributors of compiled binaries) uses "i386" to refer to all 32-bit x86 processors, including the Pentium 3.
- accrual 1y ago
  Hahah yeah, it's just a for fun/hobby PC. It's pretty beefy for what it is - 1.3GHz, 512MB RAM, 512GB SSD on a SATA card, fast AGP card. I can run a Debian desktop at 1080p on here.
spauldo 1y ago
OpenBSD requires at least a Pentium these days.
- accrual 1y ago
  Yep! I did some testing and found 6.8 was the final version to support 486 CPUs. The reason is the OpenBSD project switched to clang for the compiler in 6.9, and in the process became dependent on Pentium instructions. However, that doesn't stop one from installing a Pentium Overdrive in an old Socket 3 board and running the latest release. ;)

zozbot234 1y ago

Hopefully i386 (or perhaps a new i386-like port with added support for 64-bit time values) can move to the unofficial Debian Ports infrastructure for Debian 14 (forky) or Debian 15 (duke). Debian Ports has a m68k port, so supporting one for i386 shouldn't be a huge problem.

3eb7988a1663 1y ago
To what end? Outside of sheer nostalgia if you are running ancient hardware, you probably have a bespoke application which requires that environment. Either you cannot change for hard technical, compliance, or just fear of the unknown. Firewall it from the internet and continue to run whatever release last worked. I am not happy about unnecessary ewaste, but an i386 almost certainly has and order of magnitude less horsepower than a raspberry pi or N100.
- michaelt 1y ago
  My Linux machine is very modern, but I still need i386 architecture support installed, because Steam requires 32-bit support. And Steam requires 32-bit support so people can play 15-year-old games. (Admittedly, the 32-bit support Ubuntu ships is less than a full OS and you can't install Ubuntu on a 32-bit machine these days)
  - progval 1y ago
    So you have an amd64 CPU and Debian's "i386" packages will keep working on it. As per the release notes: > The i386 architecture is now only intended to be used on a 64-bit (amd64) CPU.
    - herewulf 1y ago
      Maybe it's one of those games that runs too fast if the CPU isn't clocked at 33 MHz. ;) It would probably take a few days to start Steam on one of those considering its load times on current hardware.
  - boomboomsubban 1y ago
    I don't think this is the case anymore, see https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/releases/wine-9.0#wow64 https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/releases/wine-9.0#wow6... though it's not the default everywhere.
  - duskwuff 1y ago
    Debian is doing basically the same thing Ubuntu is with regards to i386. Packages are still being built for the architecture, but i386 systems aren't supported, and there's no 32-bit kernel package. e.g. notice that i386 is still listed at the bottom of https://packages.debian.org/trixie/bash https://packages.debian.org/trixie/bash
- KennyBlanken 1y ago
  According to Passmark the Pentinum 4 1.3Ghz is 55 times slower than a Raspberry Pi 5, so I'd guess it's at least two orders of magnitude. The original Pi is 16 times faster than a P4 1.3Ghz... You can recycle e-waste (and yes, I know SOME e-waste ends up in China/India/etc. Not all does.) The e-waste is of substantially less concern than the massive difference in carbon footprint from power consumption.
  - bobmcnamara 1y ago
    > The original Pi is 16 times faster than a P4 1.3Ghz... It isn't. Had both. ~700MHz mostly in-order ARM 11 without SIMD. Worked with these a lot. ..vs.. 1.3GHz out-of-order with SIMD
- shasheene 1y ago
  Debian's tagline is the "universal operating system". It's a distribution with active ports on a very large number of architectures [1], even incredibly obscure ones. The goal of universal compatibility that separates the Debian project from commercial software and even other open-source projects. The legacy x86 architecture is still far more popular than some that platforms that Debian advertises as having official support for and there has been x86 based processors manufactured for niche applications until recently, eg, AMD Geode and others. I find it really unfortunate Debian Project is removing official support for new x86 installations. The silver lining is it seems like they'll be an unofficial port and it's likely niche distributions like MX Linux and AntiX will maintain their own builds. It would be ideal if open-source can develop stronger mechanims to keep support for the large numbers of these relatively niche architectures (eg, through increased usage of emulation over real hardware). [1] https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures
munchlax 1y ago
It still exists but without any official iso or installer. If that's all there's to it, you can still use debootstrap, compile a kernel, and point the root parameter to your shiny new install. If the official i386 arch was built with instructions that your hardware doesn't support, tough cookies.
- tremon 1y ago
  If the official i386 arch was built with instructions that your hardware doesn't support, tough cookies While theoretically possible, that would only happen on processors older than 30 years. Debian's i386 architecture still uses -march=i686 as its baseline compiler target, which is the venerable Pentium Pro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P6_(microarchitecture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P6_(microarchitecture)
  - avhon1 1y ago
    I have AMD Geode hardware circa 2007 (18 years old) that only has partial support for i686. Requires a true 3/4/586 kernel.
    - tremon 1y ago
      Not sure why you are downvoted, I guess people don't believe this is true. To confirm: The AMD Geode LX was a <5W 32-bit x86 processor which did not support SSE instructions, and is therefore not fully i686 compatible. According to Wikipedia, it was produced until 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amd_geode#AMD_Geode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amd_geode#AMD_Geode It was used in the OLPC XO-1. The Cisco ASA line of firewalls also used Geode processors at least at some point in its lifetime.
tremon 1y ago
The i386 architecture hasn't been dropped, it is still available in the archives to support 32-bit applications. The major change is that there no longer is a 32-bit kernel in the archive (the package linux-image-686 is no more). But most packages are still available in their i386 versions: $ curl -s http://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | zgrep ^Package: | wc -l 68737 $ curl -s http://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz | zgrep ^Package: | wc -l 66958
pabs3 1y ago
In case anyone wants to do that, here is the doc for new ports: https://wiki.debian.org/PortsDocs/New https://wiki.debian.org/PortsDocs/New
- zozbot234 1y ago
  Much of that information has to do with creating a new hardware port from scratch. The i386 support just needs to be "demoted" to the Debian ports infrastructure once it's officially scheduled to get dropped from the main Debian repository (which could well happen starting either in Debian forky or duke), and this can probably be done with some special handling. (Answering the "to what end?" question, a lot of 32bit-only hardware is still available and dirt cheap in the second-hand market (e.g. early "netbooks"), much of it quite well-built and enjoyable to use. While such hardware can no longer realistically browse the "modern" web, it can still find a lot of use for more lightweight tasks, including acting as a "thin client" for more powerful machines.)
  - pabs3 1y ago
    Well, the existing i386 port is going to remain as-is for supporting old software (especially games) (but the CPU baseline will likely get increased), it isn't going to be removed, so you would need a new architecture for 32bit-only hardware. Since i386 is not going to do the 2038 transition either (since that would break the ABI), also you would need to either make a new ABI for the new port, or do the 2038 transition for it too. Over time more and more 32-bit bugs will get introduced, so there will be lots of maintenance work to do too.
    - zozbot234 1y ago
      > ...it isn't going to be removed I had seen conflicting information about this, though nothing official. I suppose we'll know more once some actual release planning happens for forky, which might take some time.

NewJazz 1y ago

Well, isn't there an additional year or so of support for old stable? So beyond 2025.

abhinavk 1y ago
Buster is supported until June 2028.
- NewJazz 1y ago
  Thanks, I assume some of that is sort of extended, asterisked support though?
  - pabs3 1y ago
    Games are unsupported, and a bunch of other packages: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Bullseye https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Bullseye https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Using#Check_for_unsupported_packages https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Using#Check_for_unsupported_pack...
- b112 1y ago
  Not by Debian it isn't. https://www.debian.org/releases/ https://www.debian.org/releases/ Buster has not been supported by Debian for many years. Buster LTS was EOL last summer. Note that LTS is supported by volunteers via a non-profit, not Debian (though they do a good job). ELTS is paid support, again not by Debian. Do look at Debian's wiki for more info on support timeframes, and what LTS and ELTS means.
  - abhinavk 1y ago
    I was meaning to write Bookworm. Bookworm is the last to support i386 kernel and is supported until June 2028.
  - pabs3 1y ago
    Freexian is for-profit, and all the LTS/ELTS contributors are Debian maintainers, and LTS is part of Debian, while ELTS is publicly available too, but in an external archive. https://wiki.debian.org/LTS https://wiki.debian.org/LTS https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Team https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Team https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Extended https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Extended https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Funding https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Funding

badsectoracula 1y ago

AFAICT this refers to Debian support, the Linux kernel does support 32bit CPUs though only since the original Pentium (excluding some clones).

matja 1y ago
The latest kernel as of today still supports the 486SX ! (https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v6.17-rc1/arch/x86/Kconfig.cpu#L49-L54 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v6.17-rc1/arch/x86/Kc...)

esaym 1y ago

Are you confusing "386" with 32bit? 686 is the normal 32bit arch. 386 is something from the 1980's right?

NewJazz 1y ago
AIUI Debian kept the i386 name for the arch even as their 32 bit requirements evolved.
bowsamic 1y ago
i386 is the most common term used for 32 bit x86 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-32 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-32
accrual 1y ago
When distros mention i386 support they often actually refer to i586 or i686, yes. True i386 support would mean compatible with the original Intel 386 processor from 1985. The 486 added a few additional instructions in 1989 but things really changed with the Pentium in 1993 - that gave us i586 which is the bare minimum for most modern software today. Much software can still run on regular Pentiums today if compiled for it, but SSE2 optimizations requires at least a Pentium 4 or Core CPUs instead. I play with retro PCs often and found OpenBSD's i386 target stopped supporting real 386 CPUs after the 4.1 release, and dropped support for i486 somewhat recently in 6.8. It now requires at least a Pentium class CPU, i586, though the arch is still referred to as i386 likely because it's a common proxy for "32-bit".
- chungy 1y ago
  Debian 3.0 was the last version that ran on the 80386 processor proper, but even as the CPU requirements for the "i386" architecture moved up to the 486, then Pentium, then Pentium II, the name stuck around. Partly from inertia, partly to not break the entire existing mirror infrastructure.
- zozbot234 1y ago
  The Linux kernel also requires at least i486 now. AIUI that decision had to do with smoothing out multicore/SMP support - which is a bit silly because no real 80386 systems in common use are even SMP, let alone multicore. But anyway.

winrid 1y ago

Man, I thought I was behind using a P3 in like 2007 lol. You can get something 100x faster for $1 :D

avhon1 1y ago
Debian (and many other distributors of compiled binaries) uses "i386" to refer to all 32-bit x86 processors, including the Pentium 3.
accrual 1y ago
Hahah yeah, it's just a for fun/hobby PC. It's pretty beefy for what it is - 1.3GHz, 512MB RAM, 512GB SSD on a SATA card, fast AGP card. I can run a Debian desktop at 1080p on here.

spauldo 1y ago

OpenBSD requires at least a Pentium these days.

accrual 1y ago
Yep! I did some testing and found 6.8 was the final version to support 486 CPUs. The reason is the OpenBSD project switched to clang for the compiler in 6.9, and in the process became dependent on Pentium instructions. However, that doesn't stop one from installing a Pentium Overdrive in an old Socket 3 board and running the latest release. ;)