alt Hacker NewsHopefully i386 (or perhaps a new i386-like port with added support for 64-bit time values) can move to the unofficial Debian Ports infrastructure for Debian 14 (forky) or Debian 15 (duke). Debian Ports has a m68k port, so supporting one for i386 shouldn't be a huge problem.
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The i386 architecture hasn't been dropped, it is still available in the archives to support 32-bit applications. The major change is that there no longer is a 32-bit kernel in the archive (the package linux-image-686 is no more). But most packages are still available in their i386 versions:
$ curl -s http://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | zgrep ^Package: | wc -l
68737
$ curl -s http://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz | zgrep ^Package: | wc -l
66958It still exists but without any official iso or installer.
If that's all there's to it, you can still use debootstrap, compile a kernel, and point the root parameter to your shiny new install.
If the official i386 arch was built with instructions that your hardware doesn't support, tough cookies.
In case anyone wants to do that, here is the doc for new ports:
To what end? Outside of sheer nostalgia if you are running ancient hardware, you probably have a bespoke application which requires that environment. Either you cannot change for hard technical, compliance, or just fear of the unknown. Firewall it from the internet and continue to run whatever release last worked.
I am not happy about unnecessary ewaste, but an i386 almost certainly has and order of magnitude less horsepower than a raspberry pi or N100.