Fedora 23 Server: Fate of i686?

[Stephen Gallagher]

One thing that came up near the end of today's Server SIG meeting was the question of whether to support Server Roles as Docker containers in Fedora 23. The primary reason for holding off on this in the past was that only x86_64 systems could run Docker. This left i686 and armv7hl (our other two primary architectures) out in the cold if we went this path.

However, in recent months, support for Docker has been added to armv7hl. With now only one of Fedora's primary architectures lacking Docker support, it's time to reconsider. There are some strong arguments in favor of containerizing the Server Roles, notably the ability to update the Fedora Server platform and the roles independently. I think we'll likely experiment with creating a containerized Role during the Fedora 23 development phase.

Of course, with i686 being the only outlier, it begs an obvious question: Is i686 interesting to us in Fedora Server? I'm not discussing Fedora as a whole: there's plenty of value in supporting i686 for Workstation and for other spins, but it might not be as interesting to this space. The most common reason for the i686 argument is for the repurposing of old hardware, but I have trouble seeing much old hardware being used for Server tasks these days (at least, hardware so old that it cannot run the 64-bit version).

I'd like to propose that we stop shipping Fedora Server install media for i686 in Fedora 23. It would still be possible to install the majority of the package set by using the (planned) generic netinstall image in Fedora 23, so if someone *really* wanted a 32-bit version minus the Docker bits, they could get it.

Thoughts? Concerns?

This isn't a request for a formal vote (yet). I just want to hear what people think about this idea.