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One of the follow up messages is interesting: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/10/msg00288.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/10/msg00288

One of the follow up messages is interesting: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/10/msg00288.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/10/msg00288.html > Rust is already a hard requirement on all Debian release architectures and ports except for alpha, hppa, m68k, and sh4 (which do not provide sqv). Wonder what this means for those architectures then?

uecker 1y ago
They are of no commercial interest to Ubuntu.
- justinclift 1y ago
  While that seems like it would be true, is that really relevant to Debian? :)
  - noosphr 1y ago
    The person making the post is getting paid by Ubuntu.
    - apples_oranges 1y ago
      Needs a perhaps with question mark or some proof.
      - noosphr 1y ago
        You could just read his signiture in the mailing list. https://mastodon.social/@juliank https://mastodon.social/@juliank >Senior Engineer at Canonical.
        julian-klode 1y ago
        Yes that's true and there's synergies but keep in mind I also have a personal mind
        bfkwlfkjf 1y ago
        [flagged]
        oddmade 1y ago
        Let me evolve that for you. You should not only avoid appearance of impropriety, but also impropriety.
        woodruffw 1y ago
        Instead of insinuating, can you say what exactly the impropriety here would be, in your opinion?
        noir_lord 1y ago
        I think that's unkind absent any proof otherwise which you haven't posted. In reality a lot of the heavily used parts of Linux (and open source generally) are going to have some commercial involvement or are we suggesting that no one should be paid by any of the companies backing Linux who use Linux because to me that sounds worse. Whether you like it or not, Linux/Open Source hasn't been entirely the preserve of unpaid people doing it for fun for a long time.
        noosphr 1y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog I don't understand how people keep giving the benefit of the doubt to corporations. They aren't people. They feel no guilt and have no shame.
        adwn 1y ago
        Julian Klode is not a corporation, though, so we should give him the benefit of a doubt.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - dathinab 1y ago
      sure but most frequent/core contributors for Linux (kernel) and most big Distros are payed by some company with commercial interest which mostly doesn't involve spending time on maintaining any of this old architectures sure some are also payed by a foundation. Which is also payed by companies but with a degree of decoupling of influence. and some pay them self, e.g. fully voluntary work, but most dev can't afford to do so on a long term, high time commitment manner. So a lot of major changes and contributions end up coming from people directly or indirectly "payed" by some company. and that's pretty common across most "older, larger, sustainable and still developed OSS"
- dathinab 1y ago
  more relevant they are all "unofficial" supported architectures and non in a "might get official support" context, so they all have been of very limited interest of Debian as a whole for quite a while
troupo 1y ago
> Wonder what this means for those architectures then? They will be rebranded as "retro computing devices"
- viraptor 1y ago
  Most don't need to be rebranded. Alpha and hppa are retro computing and haven't been available to buy for 18 and 15 years respectively. Sh4 died this year. Only m68k is still holding on, but is a rounding error in the number is users.
  - forgetfulness 1y ago
    Aren’t m68k computers only a few models from the 1990s and 1980s, and some more recent hobby projects? That’s squarely in the retro computing enthusiasts category. I’m not in the Debian world, but those do seem to me like the types of systems that could use their own specialized distros rather than being a burden to the mass market ones. It’s not as if you could run a stock configuration of any desktop environment on them anyway.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      m68k is used in a number of embedded systems today. It is unknown (to me) how many of those run linux (as opposed to some other embedded OS), but I would guess at least some do. I also don't know how many run (or want to run) debian vs something else (a custom yacto distribution is my first guess), but that might be non-zero. It is possible someone is running a non-debian distribution and using debian packages to provide their updates. Does or should debian care? I don't know.
      - forgetfulness 1y ago
        All I find searching for “embedded m68k Linux distro” is people looking for, or coming up with, alternatives, as Debian was already “too big” fifteen years ago. I don’t get the fuzz around the “retro computing” verbiage. I doubt anyone is actually running Debian on these devices out of necessity, someone who plays baroque music in reconstructed period instruments won’t balk at being called an “early music” enthusiast.
IshKebab 1y ago
Those all seem to be completely obsolete so I guess they can just stay on the latest version of Debian that supports them, or make their own distro. (Or add Rust support I guess but that's probably not realistic.)
zozbot234 1y ago
m68k has a LLVM port already, so Rust can be implemented for that platform.[0] It would be nice to have LLVM backends for alpha, hppa and sh4 - these older architectures tend to be quite simple so a working LLVM has plenty of value as a reference and for educational use. (LLVM even used to have an in-tree DEC Alpha backend, though that was back in 2011 and not relevant to any version of Rust.) [0] Looks like there is basic initial support but no 'core' or 'std' builds yet. https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/platform-support/m68k-unknown-linux-gnu.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/platform-support/m68k-unknow... This should potentially be fixable.
- curt15 1y ago
  Shouldn't the codegen_gcc project[1] theoretically allow Rust to target backends that only GCC supports? [1] https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_gcc https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_gcc
  - fweimer 1y ago
    LLVM is desirable for other reasons (LLVMpipe for example), so investing into an LLVM port is probably a better use of limited resources than improving and maintaining a retargeted rustc for GCC.
  - dathinab 1y ago
    yes and no yes, from a pure code generation aspect no, as all conditional-compiled platform specific code is missing. So using it with #[no_core] should work (assuming the WIP part of the backend isn't a problem). But beyond that you have to first port libcore (should be doable) and then libstd (quite a bunch of work).
  - CodesInChaos 1y ago
    https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/11/msg00010.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/11/msg00010.html
  - cbmuser 1y ago
    Yes, that is being worked on.
jrmg 1y ago
Here’s Debian’s “Supported Architectures”: https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures. These platforms are all in ‘unofficial’ status (like, they work, but are not officially supported by the core Debian project). Who is actually _running_ Debian Trixie on these platforms now? It is counter-intuitive to me that these platforms are still unofficially supported, but 32-bit x86 [edit: and all MIPS architectures!] are not! I am emotionally sad to see them fall by the wayside (and weirdly motivated to dig out a 68k Amiga or ‘very old Macintosh’ and try running Trixie…) but, even from a community standpoint, I find it hard to understand where and how these ports are actually used.
- cbmuser 1y ago
  They’re not going to fall to the wayside, we’re eventually getting Rust support on these. It’s just a bit annoying that Rust proponents are being so pushy in some cases as if Rust was the solution to everything.
  - quotemstr 1y ago
    They're >20 years old and nobody seriously uses them for modern software. Come the fuck on. Let them go.
  - jrmg 1y ago
    Can you actually install Debian on an Amiga - or other 68k system - now? I’ve been searching around the web and I haven’t found much evidence that you can. This is not intended to bash you or anyone else who’s working on it - I think it’s a cool project (I have in the recent past got an 86duino ZERO to run Gentoo, just to see if an obscure old-ish piece of hardware can be useful with modern Linux on it - and it can). I do understand the reason a project like Debian might not want to have to spend resources even just to make it easier to do though.
    - bhaak 1y ago
      Here is a recent blog post where somebody tried to install Debian on an Amiga 4000 with an 68040 running at 25 MHz. https://sandervanderburg.blogspot.com/2025/01/running-linux-on-my-amiga-4000.html https://sandervanderburg.blogspot.com/2025/01/running-linux-... I didn't find what Debian version they tried but I think it's implied it's a recent version. They ran into memory issues. They had only 48MB while the recommendations are to use 64MB. It did boot though until it threw errors because of memory constraints. They got a working system by trying Debian 3.1 though.
thesuperbigfrog 1y ago
Who is still using these machines? Genuine question, not trolling. It looks like the last machines of each architecture were released: Alpha in 2007 HP-PA in 2008 m68k in pre-2000 though derivatives are used in embedded systems sh4 in 1998 (though possible usage via "J2 core" using expired patents) This means that most are nearly 20 years old or older. Rust target triples exist for: m68k: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/rustc/platform-support/m68k-unknown-linux-gnu.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/rustc/platform-support/m68... and https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/rustc/platform-support/m68k-unknown-none-elf.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/rustc/platform-support/m68... both at Tier 3. (Did not find target triples for the others.) If you are using these machines, what are you using them for? (Again, genuinely curious)
- 3eb7988a1663 1y ago
  Debian just cut i386, Wikipedia says the i386 was discontinued in 2007. These systems are all of the same vintage, so it does not seem a huge leap to be culled from the support list. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I386 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I386
  - stackskipton 1y ago
    i386 (32 bit) only processors we discontinued but 64bit processors can operate in 32bit mode so toolchain was still widely available and there was still demand for i386 OS that would run on modern hardware in i386 mode for some ancient software.
  - loeg 1y ago
    Yeah, and you can still run i386 binaries on widely available amd64 CPUs. So this is an even stronger argument for killing these other obsolete platforms.
    - LtWorf 1y ago
      You can only run the binaries if you have the libc to run them.

uecker 1y ago

They are of no commercial interest to Ubuntu.

justinclift 1y ago
While that seems like it would be true, is that really relevant to Debian? :)
- noosphr 1y ago
  The person making the post is getting paid by Ubuntu.
  - apples_oranges 1y ago
    Needs a perhaps with question mark or some proof.
    - noosphr 1y ago
      You could just read his signiture in the mailing list. https://mastodon.social/@juliank https://mastodon.social/@juliank >Senior Engineer at Canonical.
      - julian-klode 1y ago
        Yes that's true and there's synergies but keep in mind I also have a personal mind
        bfkwlfkjf 1y ago
        [flagged]
        oddmade 1y ago
        Let me evolve that for you. You should not only avoid appearance of impropriety, but also impropriety.
        woodruffw 1y ago
        Instead of insinuating, can you say what exactly the impropriety here would be, in your opinion?
        noir_lord 1y ago
        I think that's unkind absent any proof otherwise which you haven't posted. In reality a lot of the heavily used parts of Linux (and open source generally) are going to have some commercial involvement or are we suggesting that no one should be paid by any of the companies backing Linux who use Linux because to me that sounds worse. Whether you like it or not, Linux/Open Source hasn't been entirely the preserve of unpaid people doing it for fun for a long time.
        noosphr 1y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog I don't understand how people keep giving the benefit of the doubt to corporations. They aren't people. They feel no guilt and have no shame.
        adwn 1y ago
        Julian Klode is not a corporation, though, so we should give him the benefit of a doubt.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - dathinab 1y ago
    sure but most frequent/core contributors for Linux (kernel) and most big Distros are payed by some company with commercial interest which mostly doesn't involve spending time on maintaining any of this old architectures sure some are also payed by a foundation. Which is also payed by companies but with a degree of decoupling of influence. and some pay them self, e.g. fully voluntary work, but most dev can't afford to do so on a long term, high time commitment manner. So a lot of major changes and contributions end up coming from people directly or indirectly "payed" by some company. and that's pretty common across most "older, larger, sustainable and still developed OSS"
dathinab 1y ago
more relevant they are all "unofficial" supported architectures and non in a "might get official support" context, so they all have been of very limited interest of Debian as a whole for quite a while

troupo 1y ago

> Wonder what this means for those architectures then? They will be rebranded as "retro computing devices"

viraptor 1y ago
Most don't need to be rebranded. Alpha and hppa are retro computing and haven't been available to buy for 18 and 15 years respectively. Sh4 died this year. Only m68k is still holding on, but is a rounding error in the number is users.
- forgetfulness 1y ago
  Aren’t m68k computers only a few models from the 1990s and 1980s, and some more recent hobby projects? That’s squarely in the retro computing enthusiasts category. I’m not in the Debian world, but those do seem to me like the types of systems that could use their own specialized distros rather than being a burden to the mass market ones. It’s not as if you could run a stock configuration of any desktop environment on them anyway.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    m68k is used in a number of embedded systems today. It is unknown (to me) how many of those run linux (as opposed to some other embedded OS), but I would guess at least some do. I also don't know how many run (or want to run) debian vs something else (a custom yacto distribution is my first guess), but that might be non-zero. It is possible someone is running a non-debian distribution and using debian packages to provide their updates. Does or should debian care? I don't know.
    - forgetfulness 1y ago
      All I find searching for “embedded m68k Linux distro” is people looking for, or coming up with, alternatives, as Debian was already “too big” fifteen years ago. I don’t get the fuzz around the “retro computing” verbiage. I doubt anyone is actually running Debian on these devices out of necessity, someone who plays baroque music in reconstructed period instruments won’t balk at being called an “early music” enthusiast.

IshKebab 1y ago

Those all seem to be completely obsolete so I guess they can just stay on the latest version of Debian that supports them, or make their own distro. (Or add Rust support I guess but that's probably not realistic.)

zozbot234 1y ago

m68k has a LLVM port already, so Rust can be implemented for that platform.[0] It would be nice to have LLVM backends for alpha, hppa and sh4 - these older architectures tend to be quite simple so a working LLVM has plenty of value as a reference and for educational use. (LLVM even used to have an in-tree DEC Alpha backend, though that was back in 2011 and not relevant to any version of Rust.) [0] Looks like there is basic initial support but no 'core' or 'std' builds yet. https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/platform-support/m68k-unknown-linux-gnu.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/platform-support/m68k-unknow... This should potentially be fixable.

curt15 1y ago
Shouldn't the codegen_gcc project[1] theoretically allow Rust to target backends that only GCC supports? [1] https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_gcc https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_gcc
- fweimer 1y ago
  LLVM is desirable for other reasons (LLVMpipe for example), so investing into an LLVM port is probably a better use of limited resources than improving and maintaining a retargeted rustc for GCC.
- dathinab 1y ago
  yes and no yes, from a pure code generation aspect no, as all conditional-compiled platform specific code is missing. So using it with #[no_core] should work (assuming the WIP part of the backend isn't a problem). But beyond that you have to first port libcore (should be doable) and then libstd (quite a bunch of work).
- CodesInChaos 1y ago
  https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/11/msg00010.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/11/msg00010.html
- cbmuser 1y ago
  Yes, that is being worked on.

jrmg 1y ago

Here’s Debian’s “Supported Architectures”: https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures. These platforms are all in ‘unofficial’ status (like, they work, but are not officially supported by the core Debian project). Who is actually _running_ Debian Trixie on these platforms now? It is counter-intuitive to me that these platforms are still unofficially supported, but 32-bit x86 [edit: and all MIPS architectures!] are not! I am emotionally sad to see them fall by the wayside (and weirdly motivated to dig out a 68k Amiga or ‘very old Macintosh’ and try running Trixie…) but, even from a community standpoint, I find it hard to understand where and how these ports are actually used.

cbmuser 1y ago
They’re not going to fall to the wayside, we’re eventually getting Rust support on these. It’s just a bit annoying that Rust proponents are being so pushy in some cases as if Rust was the solution to everything.
- quotemstr 1y ago
  They're >20 years old and nobody seriously uses them for modern software. Come the fuck on. Let them go.
- jrmg 1y ago
  Can you actually install Debian on an Amiga - or other 68k system - now? I’ve been searching around the web and I haven’t found much evidence that you can. This is not intended to bash you or anyone else who’s working on it - I think it’s a cool project (I have in the recent past got an 86duino ZERO to run Gentoo, just to see if an obscure old-ish piece of hardware can be useful with modern Linux on it - and it can). I do understand the reason a project like Debian might not want to have to spend resources even just to make it easier to do though.
  - bhaak 1y ago
    Here is a recent blog post where somebody tried to install Debian on an Amiga 4000 with an 68040 running at 25 MHz. https://sandervanderburg.blogspot.com/2025/01/running-linux-on-my-amiga-4000.html https://sandervanderburg.blogspot.com/2025/01/running-linux-... I didn't find what Debian version they tried but I think it's implied it's a recent version. They ran into memory issues. They had only 48MB while the recommendations are to use 64MB. It did boot though until it threw errors because of memory constraints. They got a working system by trying Debian 3.1 though.

thesuperbigfrog 1y ago

Who is still using these machines? Genuine question, not trolling. It looks like the last machines of each architecture were released: Alpha in 2007 HP-PA in 2008 m68k in pre-2000 though derivatives are used in embedded systems sh4 in 1998 (though possible usage via "J2 core" using expired patents) This means that most are nearly 20 years old or older. Rust target triples exist for: m68k: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/rustc/platform-support/m68k-unknown-linux-gnu.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/rustc/platform-support/m68... and https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/rustc/platform-support/m68k-unknown-none-elf.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/rustc/platform-support/m68... both at Tier 3. (Did not find target triples for the others.) If you are using these machines, what are you using them for? (Again, genuinely curious)

3eb7988a1663 1y ago
Debian just cut i386, Wikipedia says the i386 was discontinued in 2007. These systems are all of the same vintage, so it does not seem a huge leap to be culled from the support list. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I386 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I386
- stackskipton 1y ago
  i386 (32 bit) only processors we discontinued but 64bit processors can operate in 32bit mode so toolchain was still widely available and there was still demand for i386 OS that would run on modern hardware in i386 mode for some ancient software.
- loeg 1y ago
  Yeah, and you can still run i386 binaries on widely available amd64 CPUs. So this is an even stronger argument for killing these other obsolete platforms.
  - LtWorf 1y ago
    You can only run the binaries if you have the libc to run them.