Question: can 32-bits media support be deprecated

[dvrogozh]

Please, provide feedback whether 32-bits media stack support can be deprecated? Does it make sense to provide 32-bit packages? If yes, which use cases require that? Would that make sense to focus iHD driver (https://github.com/intel/media-driver) on 64-bit support?

[th0ma7]

Interesting question.

I've been trying to find the source code for providing ffmpeg accelerated video encode/decode en evansport CPU arch such as Intel Atom CE5335. Some NAS from synology uses that CPU and only pre-built libraries & include files where provided by synology online.

In lack of finding relevant source code (which I believe was "Intel Media Processor SDK") I am currently trying to create a 32-bit build in hope this may provide similar functionality.

[mirh]

Putting aside the 32-bit issue seems just some very trivial thing with the build script (archlinux32 doesn't even need patches afaik)
CE atoms all had a powervr gpu. Which mean that everything was always only binary and separate from the rest.

[kwizart]

While 64bit x86 HW is a given or not would be a separate topic.

The point is that many steam games still relies on 32bit userspace. Same for Wine 32bit .
On Linux distribution, we are still building gstreamer plugins as i686 to satisfy some proprietary apps (citrix receiver is probably one of them that comes to mind).

So until it will be possible to run 32bit userspace on 64bit hw, the need to run 32bit will remain. When the 32bit support will be dropped from x86 64bit CPU silicon, then we can envision to stop supporting 32bit userspace.