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MIPS64EL & ARMEL Architectures Dropped In Debian Unstable/Experimental (www.phoronix.com)

submitted 1 week ago by cm0002@lemmy.zip to c/linux@programming.dev

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The ARMEL and MIPS64EL architectures have been dropped from Debian unstable and experimental. This is the end of the road for these aging ARM and MIPS targets in the Debian world.

The ARM EABI "armel" for older ARM 32-bit devices and MIPS 64-bit "mips64el" targets have been fading away for a while with declining relevance and lack of hardware availability and waning developer interest too. For ARMEL the most notable hardware is the Raspberry Pi 1 and Raspberry Pi Zero (W) boards but besides that not too much activity these days from those running ARMEL and actively upgrading to new (Debian) Linux OS releases. The MIPS architecture has been fading into obscurity for a while.

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[–] data1701d@startrek.website 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

MIPS I get, but armel feels a little weird; I’d wager there’s more production users of Debian on armel than RV64 - not a huge use case, but one that merits a bit more consideration.

I think ~2030 would have been a more realistic date, since most of the last devices with ARMv6 would be about 20 years old by then.

[–] Shadow_Glider@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But riscv is growing and armel is shrinking so presumably there's not enough interest from contributors to sustain support.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 1 points 1 week ago

True. I just think it's a few years too early; armel is dying, but I don't think it's 32-bit x86 level dead. I feel like 2030 would have been a better year. If they really found the user base was that small, though, then I guess that's less for Debian to maintain.