New Firefox 145 and the 32 Bit Build
Master hacker René Rebe, known to everyone for T2/SDE Linux, writes in a recent article about the media's proclamation of the end of 32-bit Firefox—and verifies this claim on his own system.
Of course, the world isn't black and white, and René describes how, although...
while Mozilla has ended official 32-bit Linux builds for the upstream binary release, but the underlying source code remains portable. Downstream projects such as T2 SDE Linux, which pride themselves on building Firefox natively for every architecture from i686 and PowerPC G5 to MIPS and RISC-V, already have fresh 32-bit builds running. In fact, the broader ecosystem of independent distributions continues to demonstrate that so-called “obsolete” architectures can live long, productive lives when supported by efficient cross-compilation frameworks.
So, while some in the press framed the change as another tombstone for old hardware, those who still browse the web from a ThinkPad T42, a Power Mac G5, or a Sun UltraSPARC workstatoin know better: the death of 32-bit is greatly exaggerated.
René says:"The fox, as it turns out, still runs fast — even on vintage legs." and this is nearly peotic.
Please read the whole article at his medium blog.
