Linux kernel will soon drop ~~i386~~ (32-bit) support (web.archive.org)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/permacomputing

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The article title is “Debian Likely Moving Away From i386 In The Near Future” but according to the article Debian will drop i386 support because it will be dropped from the kernel. Seems like bad news for permacomputing folks.

(EDIT) modified the title since it seems more accurate to say that 32-bit support is being dropped. (reference)

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[-] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Referring to Minix was not my intent. A short overview of the issue is here. As you apparently know Intel chips after 2008 use Minix for the management engine but I’m not sure to what extent Minix itself is a factor the vulns. The problem is the mere existence of an attack surface hard-wired into processors that can be externally exploited when the purpose of the ME is useless to non-corporate users. Bugs have been discovered that enable attackers to install malicious firmware¹. AMD’s PSP is also a problem and I don’t know if the PSP OS has been revealed. PSP is composed of an ARM processor with Trustzone, but I don’t know what OS Trustzone uses.

I just realized I forgot AMD PSP did not hit until 2013, so I guess there must be a lot of 64bit spychip-free boards out there made from 2008—2013.

1: ⚠ that link is enshitified with autoplay so I suggest using Lynx to access it.

this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023

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