AMD and Intel released the first 64-bit CPUs for consumers back in 2003 and 2004. Now, more than a decade later, Linux distributions are looking at winding down support for 32-bit hardware.
Google already took this leap back in 2015, dumping 32-bit versions of Chrome for Linux.
Ubuntu is just the latest distro to plan for this
Ubuntu’s Dimitri John Ledkov put forth a proposal to wind down 32-bit support on the Ubuntu mailing list recently. Hardware that can’t run 64-bit software is becoming much less common, while creating 32-bit images, testing them, and supporting them takes time and effort. (On Linux, the “i386” architecture is the standard 32-bit for Intel-compatible CPUs, while “amd64” is the 64-bit architecture originally made by AMD that Intel CPUs are compatible with.)
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