On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 12:42:39PM -0400, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> > Since, in a sense, Devuan tries to explore different ways to run a
> > O.S. than the mainstream distro's out there, why not have packages for
> > the X32 ABI??
> > https://wiki.debian.org/X32Port
> > https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/x32
>
> Does that do x32 userspace, or kernelspace as well?

Userspace -- it runs on amd64 kernels built with an appropriate option.
On Debian official kernels, you append syscall.x32=y to the cmdline, on
vanilla kernels you compile with CONFIG_X86_X32=y.

> Can I run x32 userspace code on a 64-bit kernel?

Only.

> Might it be the right system to use on my 64-bit computer with only
> 2G RAM?

Would be, but only one person (Thorsten Glaser) believes there's a point in
x32 GUI packages. The rest of porters think it's better to have it as a
partial architecture, as a modern computer runs only a single GUI session
thus memory gains are not worth the considerable effort of making them work
-- memory is not that expensive compared to human time.

The biggest hurdle to run x32 GUI is no mainstream browser: neither Firefox
nor Chromium have been ported, and the likes of Konqueror are meh.

On the other hand, for hosting scenarios where you run _many_ VMs or
containers, it's a huge win.

> Without, alas, working USB ports, so I'm copletely paranoid about
> accidentally losing bootability, which happened on my laptop recently
> (where I recovered using refracta).

Booting seems to work reliably these days, but obviously a non-mainstream
architecture is more likely to run into problems.

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