Re: QEMU requires a 64-bit CPU host architecture?

["Daniel P. Berrangé" <berrange@redhat.com>]

On Fri, Mar 20, 2026 at 09:45:20AM +0300, Michael Tokarev wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Is it intentional that qemu does not build utilities on 32bit hosts
> anymore?

Yes, per this note:

  https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/about/removed-features.html#bit-host-operating-systems-removed-in-11-0


> I understand system/user emulation on a 32bit host, where there are
> quite some real difficulties with address space sizes.
> 
> But what's wrong with building qemu-img et al on a 32bit host?  It
> doesn't require 64bit address space..

While the acclerator burden was one big factor, there were other
code removals enabled by dropping 32-bit hosts, such as removal
of 64-bit atomics emulation, and removal of some back compat
definitions for 32-bit kernels, and simplifying assumptions about
CPU features in other code, all of which leak out into common
code used by qemu-img & similar tools.

Keeping an arbitrary, and continually changing, subset of QEMU
supporting 32-bit while most code dropped 64-bit would not be
fun situation for maintainers, even with CI to try to detect
problems.

With regards,
Daniel
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