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32-bit or 64-bit?
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|description={{project_name_long}} 64bit builds. From {{project_name_long}} 14 onward, only 64-bit builds are available for download.
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{{project_name_short}} 64bit builds.

From {{project_name_short}} 14 onward, only 64-bit builds are available for download.

32-bit builds are [[unsupported]].

See also [[System Requirements]].
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<ref>
https://phabricator.whonix.org/T91
</ref> This decision is based on several factors:

* Distributions are increasingly dropping support for 32-bit systems (including Debian). <ref>
* https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Debian-686-For-i386-CPUs
* https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2015/09/msg00589.html
</ref>
* Only a small minority of users are stuck with older hardware that will not support 64-bit builds. <ref>
For example in [https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/8183 Tails], less than 10% of users had 32-bit kernels in late 2016.
</ref>
* It is a significant maintenance burden for {{project_name_short}} to maintain both 32-bit and 64-bit builds. <ref>
That is, {{project_name_short}} would need to maintain 10 images instead of the current 6 images.
</ref>
* Users could attempt to build a 32-bit version of [[Dev/Build_Documentation|{{project_name_short}} from source code]], by appending the {{project_name_short}} build script parameter <code>--arch i386</code>.
* Statistics: https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/8183
* Forum Discussion: https://forums.whonix.org/t/state-of-offical-64-bit-builds
* See additional information in the footnote. <ref>Previously, {{non_q_project_name_short}} 13 users ([https://forums.whonix.org/t/whonix-13-approaching-eol-end-of-life-2018-september-30-all-users-must-upgrade deprecated]) who relied on 32-bit (i686) hardware were still able to use {{project_name_short}} 14 by using the [[Release_Upgrade|upgrade instructions]]. This was because none of the {{project_name_short}} packages were made 64-bit only. A similar procedure is no longer possible, but interested readers can refer to [https://phabricator.whonix.org/T688#13700 this phabricator entry] and [https://forums.whonix.org/t/state-of-offical-64-bit-builds/399 forum post].</ref>

= Footnotes =
<references />
[[Category:Development]]
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