[PATCH 10/10] docs/about/deprecated: Deprecate the qemu-system-i386 binary

[Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>]

From: Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>

Aside from not supporting KVM on 32-bit hosts, the qemu-system-x86_64
binary is a proper superset of the qemu-system-i386 binary. And with
the 32-bit x86 host support being removed now, it is possible to
deprecate the qemu-system-i386 binary now, too.

With regards to 32-bit KVM support in the x86 Linux kernel,
the developers confirmed that they do not need a recent
qemu-system-i386 binary here:

 https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/Y%2ffkTs5ajFy0hP1U@google.com/

Reviewed-by: Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <philmd@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>
---
 docs/about/deprecated.rst | 19 +++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+)

diff --git a/docs/about/deprecated.rst b/docs/about/deprecated.rst
index a6d6a713265..2de51337d75 100644
--- a/docs/about/deprecated.rst
+++ b/docs/about/deprecated.rst
@@ -301,6 +301,25 @@ machine must ensure that they're setting the ``spike`` machine in the
 command line (``-M spike``).
 
 
+System emulator binaries
+------------------------
+
+``qemu-system-i386`` binary (since 11.1)
+''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
+
+The ``qemu-system-i386`` binary was mainly useful for running with KVM
+on 32-bit x86 hosts, but most Linux distributions already removed their
+support for 32-bit x86 kernels, so hardly anybody still needs this. The
+``qemu-system-x86_64`` binary is a proper superset and can be used to
+run 32-bit guests by selecting a 32-bit CPU model, including KVM support
+on x86_64 hosts. Thus users are recommended to reconfigure their systems
+to use the ``qemu-system-x86_64`` binary instead. If a 32-bit CPU guest
+environment should be enforced, you can switch off the "long mode" CPU
+flag with ``-cpu max,lm=off``, or rename/symlink ``qemu-system-x86_64``
+to ``qemu-system-i386`` -- QEMU will then run with the 64-bit extensions
+disabled.
+
+
 Backend options
 ---------------
 
-- 
2.53.0