From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Keir Fraser Subject: PROPOSAL: Remove 32-bit x86 host support in 4.2 development branch Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:21:35 +0000 Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com Errors-To: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com To: "xen-devel@lists.xensource.com" , xen-users@lists.xensource.com List-Id: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org Folks, There's been discussion in the past about eventually removing support for 32-bit x86 in the development branch of the hypervisor. The reasons being: * It takes developer effort to maintain and test * Most repackagers are supplying 64-bit only hypervisor binary these days * 32-bit target is not supported in any case for various new hypervisor features (e.g., memory paging, memory sharing, memory access trapping) * 64-bit support has been standard in all mainstream x86 processors for about the last 5 years. With a 64-bit processor there is no reason to run the 32-bit hypervisor, as the 64-bit hypervisor supports all 32-bit guests. With 4.1 branched I'd like to raise this topic again. Does anyone have a strong argument for keeping the 32-bit x86 target alive? Thanks, Keir