The developers of the AlmaLinux project, which develops a version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) distribution, have announced the launch of the AlmaLinux Kitten distribution with a package repository built for the i686 architecture, as well as the publication of container images in docker format for 32-bit x86 systems. The AlmaLinux Kitten 10 edition is based on the package base of CentOS Stream 10, developed using a continuous package update model, and serves as the upstream for the AlmaLinux 10 branch. In the future, similar builds are planned for the main AlmaLinux OS 10 distribution and will be supported until 2035 throughout the life cycle of the 10.x branch.
The reason for reviving builds for the i686 architecture is the desire to enable the running of legacy applications that are only available as executable files for 32-bit systems. These builds can also be useful for creating 32-bit environments for testing code in continuous integration systems and for running containers for 32-bit applications.
Red Hat ceased the formation of 32-bit builds for the x86 architecture in the release of RHEL 7, published in 2014. In the CentOS 7 branch, the creation of 32-bit packages continued by the CentOS Linux AltArch SIG team, but starting with the CentOS 8 branch, the formation of such builds was discontinued.
Source: opennet.ru
