FreeBSD's developers have announced a plan to discontinue support for 32-bit platforms. In the FreeBSD 15 branch, armv6, i386, and powerpc platforms will no longer be provided, and in the FreeBSD 16 branch, support for the armv7 platform will be halted. The ability to build 32-bit programs and use the COMPAT_FREEBSD32 mode to run 32-bit executables in a 64-bit kernel environment will remain available at least until the end of the FreeBSD 16 branch's lifecycle.
The reasons for discontinuing support for 32-bit architectures include the decrease in popularity of 32-bit installations, a shift in hardware market demand towards 64-bit systems, deprecation of 32-bit hardware, and a lack of resources for maintaining outdated platforms.
Kilde: opennet.ru
