Possible fork of 32bit RpiOS?

codydragonrude

I was just wondering if the devs of retropie had any plans to fork the 32bit version of rpiOS to keep support for it on raspberry pi devices since a lot of community ports are made for the 32 bit environment on retropie and i feel switching to 64bit is going to break already existing community ports such as AM2R

Basically the question i'm trying to get at here is
How does the retropie team plan to transition everything to 64bit in a way that does not cause more headaches than it's worth for community port developers?

dankcushions

is raspi pi OS 32-bit being depreciated? surely it's required still for rpi1/2, etc.

Ashpool

@codydragonrude I always thought that most 64bit OS are able to run 32bit applications (Buzzwords: WoW64 on Windows, Multiarch for Debian/*nix), so there shouldn't be a problem for now and if in the long run such support is stripped, we most propably are in a time where any such 32bit application already had to be run in a VM or emu layer on its own ... just my 2ct here of course...

codydragonrude

@dankcushions At some point it will most likely be deprecated since it's legacy branch now
I would say officially it's on borrowed time so forking it might be the only way people keep 32bit support alive
32bit in linux is pretty much phased out at this point as the consensus is if your computers so old it don't even have a 64bit capable cpu you probably can't do much with it anyways

codydragonrude

@Ashpool Somewhat true most applications would be fine but some that depend on 32 bit components will be broken until updated by the community assuming they even want to

And then theirs the issue of some emulators features not even working properly at all in 64bit example being enhanced resolution in pcsxr

windg

I believe that is very difficult for the developers of RetroPie (2-5 members?) to maintance and entire OS . It's more realistic to continue to provide the ability to download and install emulators, old or new.

codydragonrude

@windg so what are they going to do? update to 64bit and expect everything to work?

the devs really should tackle this problem now instead of waiting for the legacy branch to reach end of life as that would create a huge mess for developers and users

mitu

@codydragonrude said in Possible fork of 32bit RpiOS?:

the devs really should tackle this problem now instead of waiting for the legacy branch to reach end of life as that would create a huge mess for developers and users

I'll repeat @dankcushions's question - is there any announcement from the RaspiOS developers (RPT) that they'll stop providing a 32bit OS ?

RetroPie always relied on Rapbian/RaspiOS on the Pi - there's no plan to provide our own fork or OS.

windg

@codydragonrude said in Possible fork of 32bit RpiOS?:

@windg so what are they going to do? update to 64bit and expect everything to work?

i can't answer this questions because i am not a developer and i don't know anything about programming. I have test other 64bit retro distros, RetroPie 64bit (Bullseye), Rasbian 64 bit. So, from my experience, the later they adopt 64 bit, the better..

codydragonrude

@mitu By default RpiOS is 64bit now
at some point support for legacy is going to reach EOL which is normal for linux distros

This whole thing is going to be a mess at some point
best to tackle it now to reassure users that a giant mess is not coming

But it's your guys distro so whatever you feel is right for the users at this point

mitu

@codydragonrude said in Possible fork of 32bit RpiOS?:

@mitu By default RpiOS is 64bit now

No, it's not. The current RPI OS release (based on Debian 'bullseye') was released 32bit back in November and the 64 bit version was out of beta later on - this February.

at some point support for legacy is going to reach EOL which is normal for linux distros

Not sure what you mean 'legacy' ? The RPI OS Legacy version, based on Debian 'buster' ?

This whole thing is going to be a mess at some point
best to tackle it now to reassure users that a giant mess is not coming

I doubt it.

Ashpool

@mitu said in Possible fork of 32bit RpiOS?:

Not sure what you mean 'legacy' ? The RPI OS Legacy version, based on Debian 'buster' ?

Keeping in mind:

“New” old functionality with Raspberry Pi OS (Legacy)

Raspberry Pi OS (Legacy) will remain supported while the various components continue to receive updates. For Debian Buster, support will be available until June 2024. For Linux 5.10 kernel, December 2026. If Debian Bookworm becomes stable in this time, Raspberry Pi (Legacy) will switch to Bullseye.

ButI cannot remember any announcement about 64bit replacing 32bit in the near future, and as I am doubting that they will drop support for their 32bit cpu products anytime soon, I am also doubting that the replacement of the 32bit OS as their default OS with the now just out of beta 64OS will become a rushed move by Raspberry Pi foundation.

Vegz78

Sorry for entering this discussion from the side, but I just emerged after hours of pain figuring out how to run my 32-bit MakeCode Arcade "port", McAirpos, on the now 64-bit-only Batocera Buildroot distros for the RPi3 and RP4.

I am in no control over the compilation of the actual 32-bit game files, so my challange is to keep 32-bit running on 64-bit systems somehow, which might also apply to others.

Batocera seems to argue that the swap to 64-bit is necessary and the right moment now sooner than later, since they claim that more and more emulator projects are going 64-bit default, and might be hard soon to keep running 32-bit. I am in no position to evaluate this argument.

But if RetroPie, with its fairly standard Raspberry Pi OS distro beneath follows them into 64-bit land, and I see mentioned above that RPi OS will continue to support 32-bit programs, isn't this just the best of two worlds for many years to come?(UPDATE: There is no 32-bit runtime support on RPi OS 64-bit)

PS: I also saw mentioned on Discord that 64-bit gives improved performance in certain aspects and for certain games and emulators. Would this also be the case for RetroPie on the Raspberry Pis?

dankcushions

@Vegz78 as @mitu alluded to previously, retropie is an installation script that sits on (in the case of raspberry pi), raspberry pi OS. currently raspberry pi OS comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavours, both of which retropie supports and installs appropriate software for. there's no need to "swap to 64-bit" - the support is already there, depending on what raspberry pi OS you're running.

in terms of how long raspberry pi OS will support 32-bit - i don't see any indication that they're going to drop it (after all, several pi boards ONLY support 32-bit), so i don't see the concern.

@Vegz78 said in Possible fork of 32bit RpiOS?:

PS: I also saw mentioned on Discord that 64-bit gives improved performance in certain aspects and for certain games and emulators. Would this also be the case for RetroPie on the Raspberry Pis?

it can improve some performance in specific situations, but i think in general it's not of massive significance, as typically CPU is not the bottleneck for pi emulation.

Vegz78

@dankcushions

Thank you for you reply. I was trying to convey the same message, although maybe not clearly, in my passage:

But if RetroPie, with its fairly standard Raspberry Pi OS distro beneath follows them into 64-bit land, and I see mentioned above that RPi OS will continue to support 32-bit programs, isn't this just the best of two worlds for many years to come?

What I meant, with @mitu's same comment about RetroPie being an installer on top of standard RPi OS in mind, was this situational picture:

Old hardware(32-bit) -> RPi OS legacy 32-bit -> all good in the forseeable future for RetroPie and today's 32-bit emulators and ports, but might have trouble with running 64-bit programs in the future(or can compile to 32-bit?)
New hardware(64-bit) -> RPi OS standard, 64-bit with 32-bit runtime support -> alles gut for the forseeable future, RetroPie, 32-bit and 64-bit emulators and ports live happily side-by-side, and @codydragonrude's concerns should not be a problem any time soon.(UPDATE: There is no 32-bit runtime on the RPi OS 64-bit.)

What did I misunderstand? And sorry for being unclear previously(, or if I am so slow that I still do not get the correct picture of things, hehe...)

(The first point is really the opposite of @codydragonrude's concerns. It is also the opposite of the situation at Betocera, which now is 64-bit only, and does indeed cause @codydragonrude's concerns.)

mitu

@Vegz78 said in Possible fork of 32bit RpiOS?:

New hardware(64-bit) -> RPi OS standard, 64-bit with 32-bit runtime support -> alles gut for the forseeable future, RetroPie, 32-bit and 64-bit emulators and ports live happily side-by-side, and @codydragonrude's concerns should not be a problem any time soon.

What did I misunderstand?

Current RPI OS is both 32 (primarily - armhf) and 64 bit (separate install image and OS - aarch64) - it's not a single install/image. There's no 32/64bit side-by-side on the same install - AFAIK it's not a scenario used by RPI OS.

Vegz78

@mitu

Aha!

Thanks for clarifying beyond doubts(and confirming my slowness...)! ;-)

UPDATE: Just tested the RPi OS 64-bit image, and - indeed - as @mitu clarified, there is no 32-bit runtime there.

But for us slow: Doesn't that also imply that @codydragonrude's concerns about 32-bit ports/emulators actually are somewhat warranted some time in the future, if or when, many or most of RetroPie's users have switched over to 64-bit RetroPie(with emulators and ports) on top of 64-bit RPi OS?
Reference: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/32190/is-a-64-bit-retropie-planned-in-the-near-future/7

Ashpool

@mitu said in Possible fork of 32bit RpiOS?:

There's no 32/64bit side-by-side on the same install - AFAIK it's not a scenario used by RPI OS.

Haven't tried the 64bit OS so far, but does that mean that Debians Multiarch ain't installed on the Raspberry OS? It was so long ago that I vaguely remember my migration to 64bit (1st XPx64 and then Ubuntu (???)), but AFAIR the only real problem wheren't pure 32bit Applications but only 16bit ones or 32bit ones which relied on 16bit components - so I am a bit astonished now that the Raspi OS won't Multiarch OOB - Sigh!

mitu

@Ashpool said in Possible fork of 32bit RpiOS?:

Raspi OS won't Multiarch OOB - Sigh!

Neither does upstream Debian, nor Redhat.

As opposed to Windows, almost the aplications available in the distro repositories are available in 64 bit variants, whereas Windows must support 3rd party apps which may not have 64bit versions - hence the presence of the 32bit compatibility OOB. Not talking about macOS, which dropped support for 32bit altogether in their recent OS versions.

Ashpool

@mitu said in Possible fork of 32bit RpiOS?:

hence the presence of the 32bit compatibility OOB

Thanks for the clarification! And I would have sworn that after my migration to XPx64 the change in Ubuntu was troublesome in the 1st incarnations of 64bit but later it was pretty easy (maybe because all apt* gets where referencing 64bit installs), but still I remember using certain geo-scientific apps (edit: deb packages) that where 32bit (and wheren't updated since ages) only under ubuntu 64bit... but I am really not sure whether I installed a layer similar to WoW64 or simply used in that time something like "linux32 <appname>", but what I am pretty sure in my memories is that in early ubuntu 64bit versions I've stepped back from migration because they where 64bit World only and just a few distros later it was alike (in my memory) to the windows world :/ Well, Memories.... But to add one last statement, after XPx64 (which really wasn't supported/pushed by M$ from start and the users of it learned pretty fast how to use Orca or the Windows SDK AppVerifier to get apps installed) and the early hazzards of 64bit OS', I've never had any trouble of running 32bit Apps on my Desktop PC Systems (on various 64bit OS)... So I am really troubled by the notion of the concept 32bit ain't running under 64bit OS', as my experience is strictly opposed to that :/

Though I may say, my thoughts aren't really helpfull within OP's topic ... Sigh...