native: 64-Bit support?

[brummer-simon]

Hi,

I have read today that Arch Linux seems to discontinue x86 32-bit
platform support in summer 2017.

Other distributions might follow in the future. Are there any plans to
get rid of natives dependencies to its manditory 32-bit libraries?

[miri64]

This doesn't make much sense IMHO. We don't have support for any other 32-bit platform.

[brummer-simon]

@miri64 - I dont get what you mean. I am just saying that Linuxes support for i386 starts to vanish sooner or later, therfore "native" should buildable under Linux on x86_64 without dependencies to i386 libraries.

[kaspar030]

@brummer-simon Arch only discuntinues 32bit only installations. they will not drop support for 32bit userland binaries.

Having native compile for 32bit would be nice-to-have, but IMHO is not worth the effort of fixing the codebase (yet).

[miri64]

@brummer-simon

@miri64 - I dont get what you mean. I am just saying that Linuxes support for i386 starts to vanish sooner or later, therfore "native" should buildable under Linux on x86_64 without dependencies to i386 libraries.

I mean, why making the native platform vastly different, only because one distro is dropping toolchain support for it (which it isn't, see @kaspar030's comment). There are always ways to install software beyond the official repositories of a Linux distribution (in Arch even easier than most other distros IMHO), so why enforce a very different architecture (64bit on native vs (32bit, 16bit or 8bit) on all other platforms) just because you can't apt-get install gcc-multilib anymore?

@kaspar030

Having native compile for 32bit would be nice-to-have, but IMHO is not worth the effort of fixing the codebase (yet).

You mean 64bit?

[miri64]

[…] just because you can't apt-get install gcc-multilib anymore?

I mean of course pacman -S gcc-multilib ^^"

[LudwigKnuepfer]

| We don't have support for any other 32-bit platform.

You mean 64bit?

| Are there any plans to get rid of natives dependencies to its manditory 32-bit libraries?

Not that I'm aware of.

[LudwigKnuepfer]

I highly doubt any major Linux distribution will drop 32-bit support (available via multilib for the x86_64 platform) in the foreseeable future.
That being said there are pros and cons.

Pro:

• improve RIOT's code base by fixing 64 related errors
• simplify toolchain setup for native

Con:

• effort / gain (as it's unlikely we will support any other 64 bit platform, fixing potential 64 bit errors in RIOT is less beneficial)
• decreased 32 bit testing (unless we make 32 the default in which case the toolchain setup argument is diminished)

From my perspective the pros don't justify pulling manpower from other tasks.

[LudwigKnuepfer]

Closing as memo, reopen if you disagree.

[LudwigKnuepfer]

PS:
I added my answer to the FAQ - if I missed some important point please update there as well.

[miri64]

We don't have support for any other 32-bit platform.

You mean 64bit?

Yes ^^"