{{Header}} {{Title|title= 32-bit or 64-bit? }} {{#seo: |description={{project_name_long}} 64bit builds. From {{project_name_long}} 14 onward, only 64-bit builds are available for download. }} {{intro| {{project_name_short}} 64bit builds. From {{project_name_short}} 14 onward, only 64-bit builds are available for download. 32-bit builds are [[unsupported]]. See also [[System Requirements]]. }} https://phabricator.whonix.org/T91 This decision is based on several factors: * Distributions are increasingly dropping support for 32-bit systems (including Debian). * https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Debian-686-For-i386-CPUs * https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2015/09/msg00589.html * Only a small minority of users are stuck with older hardware that will not support 64-bit builds. For example in [https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/8183 Tails], less than 10% of users had 32-bit kernels in late 2016. * It is a significant maintenance burden for {{project_name_short}} to maintain both 32-bit and 64-bit builds. That is, {{project_name_short}} would need to maintain 10 images instead of the current 6 images. * Users could attempt to build a 32-bit version of [[Dev/Build_Documentation|{{project_name_short}} from source code]], by appending the {{project_name_short}} build script parameter --arch i386. * Statistics: https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/8183 * Forum Discussion: https://forums.whonix.org/t/state-of-offical-64-bit-builds * See additional information in the footnote. Previously, {{non_q_project_name_short}} 13 users ([https://forums.whonix.org/t/whonix-13-approaching-eol-end-of-life-2018-september-30-all-users-must-upgrade deprecated]) who relied on 32-bit (i686) hardware were still able to use {{project_name_short}} 14 by using the [[Release_Upgrade|upgrade instructions]]. This was because none of the {{project_name_short}} packages were made 64-bit only. A similar procedure is no longer possible, but interested readers can refer to [https://phabricator.whonix.org/T688#13700 this phabricator entry] and [https://forums.whonix.org/t/state-of-offical-64-bit-builds/399 forum post]. = Footnotes = [[Category:Development]] {{Footer}}