32 bits digiKam bundles : still necessary ?

[Gilles Caulier-4]

Hi all,

Just few words in this room about the bundles files created at each digiKam releases.

Currently we provide :

- 2 Windows installers : 32 and 64 bits.

- 1 MacOS PKG : 64 bits.

- 2 Linux AppImage : 32 and 64 bits.

I plan to drop the 32 bits versions and let's only the 64 bits.

Why ? because 32 bits become more and more difficult to build, especially the AppImage. I spare a lots of time to maintain the bundles compilation workflow. All this time passed at this task is not used to really code in digiKam.

About AppImage, this needs to be compiled from scratch. I use CentOS 6 to prevent broken binary compatibility with glibc with recent Linux distro.

CentOS 6 32 bits is not maintained anymore. To get last compiler version supporting C++11 at least to compile Qt5 and KF5, i need to branch the distro to Scientific Linux from the CERN which provide extra repository. But this become step by step complicated to maintain in time. I tried to use last Qt 5.9.2 and the compiler version is not enough. And i don't talk about last KF5 version witch use more and more C++14 rules in source code which are not supported well by old compilers.

Note : The Windows 32 bits croos-compiled with MXE is not problematic, but to be homogeneous, i will drop this one too.

Another point in favor of 64 bits against 32 bits version : 32 bits is limited in absolute to 4 GB of RAM, lees of course delegate to OS. So digiKam will quickly saturate the memory if you try to manage huge images (as panorama for ex).

An last point : 32 bits systems become less and less used. My viewpoint is to promote 64 bits instead now.

Users viewpoints are welcome.

Thanks in advance

Gilles Caulier

Le 02/11/2017 à 11:52, Gilles Caulier a écrit :

> An last point : 32 bits systems become less and less used. My viewpoint
> is to promote 64 bits instead now.
>
> Users viewpoints are welcome.

I know this is the road to the future, but 32 bits computers are still
very numerous, it seems that there was 10 years ago a class of computers
extremely strong, when I see how many are still there.

I even have on my desk a quite new (one year old) windows computer with
64 bits processor... but a 32 bits windows, and reasonably fast, enough
for digikam, for sure.

I know openSUSE Tubleweed will keep a 32 bits version for some time,
Ubuntu may have a 32 bits LTS, Debian I don't know

if you could keep 32 bits for 2 years from now, I guess it could be
usefull, but it may not be really important to ad new features to this
version, only port the security patches

thanks for the great work!!

jdd


--
http://dodin.org

[Tom Cunningham]

As jdd points out, it would probably be good to give people a heads-up at least a year in advance (with reminders) before pulling support.  It's definitely the way things are going, so putting a stake in the ground shouldn't be a problem.

Take care,

Tom

>Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 12:08:10 +0100
>From: "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]>
>To: [hidden email]
>Subject: Re: 32 bits digiKam bundles : still necessary ?
>Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
>Le 02/11/2017 à 11:52, Gilles Caulier a écrit :
>
>> An last point : 32 bits systems become less and less used. My
>> viewpoint is to promote 64 bits instead now.
>>
>> Users viewpoints are welcome.
>
>I know this is the road to the future, but 32 bits computers are still very numerous, it seems that there was 10 years ago a class of computers extremely strong, when I see how many are >still there.
>
>I even have on my desk a quite new (one year old) windows computer with
>64 bits processor... but a 32 bits windows, and reasonably fast, enough for digikam, for sure.
>
>I know openSUSE Tubleweed will keep a 32 bits version for some time, Ubuntu may have a 32 bits LTS, Debian I don't know
>
>if you could keep 32 bits for 2 years from now, I guess it could be usefull, but it may not be really important to ad new features to this version, only port the security patches
>
>thanks for the great work!!
>
>jdd

[Jack Marxer]

I also think that dropping 32 bit versions is a good idea. It would allow more time and effort to be directed to improving digiKam.

Thank you for all your excellent work on digiKam, developers and maintainers. I've been using it for many years now and am very happy with it. I would like to see better face recognition and maybe dropping 32 bit versions might make more time and effort available for that improvement.

Jack Marxer

[AndriusWild]

I would pick a linux distro that is going to support 32 bit for a while and talk to their packagers to see if they might be interested in supporting the 32 bit version  of digikam.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Jack Marxer <[hidden email]>

Date: 2017-11-02 2:22 PM (GMT-07:00)

To: digiKam - Home Manage your photographs as a professional with the power of open source <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: 32 bits digiKam bundles : still necessary ?

I also think that dropping 32 bit versions is a good idea. It would allow more time and effort to be directed to improving digiKam.

Thank you for all your excellent work on digiKam, developers and maintainers. I've been using it for many years now and am very happy with it. I would like to see better face recognition and maybe dropping 32 bit versions might make more time and effort available for that improvement.

Jack Marxer

[AndriusWild]

Linux Lite might be a good distro for 32 bit computers.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Andrey Goreev <[hidden email]>

Date: 2017-11-02 2:45 PM (GMT-07:00)

To: digiKam - Home Manage your photographs as a professional with the power of open source <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: 32 bits digiKam bundles : still necessary ?

I would pick a linux distro that is going to support 32 bit for a while and talk to their packagers to see if they might be interested in supporting the 32 bit version  of digikam.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Jack Marxer <[hidden email]>

Date: 2017-11-02 2:22 PM (GMT-07:00)

To: digiKam - Home Manage your photographs as a professional with the power of open source <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: 32 bits digiKam bundles : still necessary ?

I also think that dropping 32 bit versions is a good idea. It would allow more time and effort to be directed to improving digiKam.

Thank you for all your excellent work on digiKam, developers and maintainers. I've been using it for many years now and am very happy with it. I would like to see better face recognition and maybe dropping 32 bit versions might make more time and effort available for that improvement.

Jack Marxer

[Remco Viëtor]

On jeudi 2 novembre 2017 11:52:58 CET Gilles Caulier wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Just few words in this room about the bundles files created at each digiKam
> releases.
>
> Currently we provide :
>
> - 2 Windows installers : 32 and 64 bits.
> - 1 MacOS PKG : 64 bits.
> - 2 Linux AppImage : 32 and 64 bits.
>
> I plan to drop the 32 bits versions and let's only the 64 bits.
>
> Why ? because 32 bits become more and more difficult to build, especially
> the AppImage. I spare a lots of time to maintain the bundles compilation
> workflow. All this time passed at this task is not used to really code in
> digiKam.
>
> About AppImage, this needs to be compiled from scratch. I use CentOS 6 to
> prevent broken binary compatibility with glibc with recent Linux distro.
>
> CentOS 6 32 bits is not maintained anymore. To get last compiler version
> supporting C++11 at least to compile Qt5 and KF5, i need to branch the
> distro to Scientific Linux from the CERN which provide extra repository.
> But this become step by step complicated to maintain in time. I tried to
> use last Qt 5.9.2 and the compiler version is not enough. And i don't talk
> about last KF5 version witch use more and more C++14 rules in source code
> which are not supported well by old compilers.
>
> Note : The Windows 32 bits croos-compiled with MXE is not problematic, but
> to be homogeneous, i will drop this one too.
>
> Another point in favor of 64 bits against 32 bits version : 32 bits is
> limited in absolute to 4 GB of RAM, lees of course delegate to OS. So
> digiKam will quickly saturate the memory if you try to manage huge images
> (as panorama for ex).
>
> An last point : 32 bits systems become less and less used. My viewpoint is
> to promote 64 bits instead now.
>
> Users viewpoints are welcome.
> Thanks in advance

I've switched to 64-bit years ago, so /for me/, maintaining a 32-bit version
looks like a waste of time. And from the other answers, there's /perhaps/ one
in there who is still using a 32-bit digikam version.

Is it possible to freeze a 32-bit source (for older OS versions), and only
provide builds for 64-bit versions? After all, the 32-bit OSs seem to be
outdated (at least as far as Linux is concerned), so users are already behind
on security patches. If you provide source tarballs, the 32-bit users will
still have access to the program, but of course w/o the latest functionality.

And if the libraries Digikam depends on are moving more and more to C++11/C+
+14, older systems will get forced out sooner rather than later anyway. It's
unreasonable to expect a small player wasting time for a platform the big ones
have dropped...

Btw, I thought digikam was moving away from the KDE frameworks, and aimed to
be 'QT only'?

Remco

P.S. If indeed the Windows 32-bit build cross-compiles w/o problems, deprecate
it for a year or so after dropping the other 32-bit builds?

[Gilles Caulier-4]

2017-11-03 8:06 GMT+01:00 Remco Viëtor <[hidden email]>:

On jeudi 2 novembre 2017 11:52:58 CET Gilles Caulier wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Just few words in this room about the bundles files created at each digiKam
> releases.
>
> Currently we provide :
>
> - 2 Windows installers : 32 and 64 bits.
> - 1 MacOS PKG : 64 bits.
> - 2 Linux AppImage : 32 and 64 bits.
>
> I plan to drop the 32 bits versions and let's only the 64 bits.
>
> Why ? because 32 bits become more and more difficult to build, especially
> the AppImage. I spare a lots of time to maintain the bundles compilation
> workflow. All this time passed at this task is not used to really code in
> digiKam.
>
> About AppImage, this needs to be compiled from scratch. I use CentOS 6 to
> prevent broken binary compatibility with glibc with recent Linux distro.
>
> CentOS 6 32 bits is not maintained anymore. To get last compiler version
> supporting C++11 at least to compile Qt5 and KF5, i need to branch the
> distro to Scientific Linux from the CERN which provide extra repository.
> But this become step by step complicated to maintain in time. I tried to
> use last Qt 5.9.2 and the compiler version is not enough. And i don't talk
> about last KF5 version witch use more and more C++14 rules in source code
> which are not supported well by old compilers.
>
> Note : The Windows 32 bits croos-compiled with MXE is not problematic, but
> to be homogeneous, i will drop this one too.
>
> Another point in favor of 64 bits against 32 bits version : 32 bits is
> limited in absolute to 4 GB of RAM, lees of course delegate to OS. So
> digiKam will quickly saturate the memory if you try to manage huge images
> (as panorama for ex).
>
> An last point : 32 bits systems become less and less used. My viewpoint is
> to promote 64 bits instead now.
>
> Users viewpoints are welcome.
> Thanks in advance

I've switched to 64-bit years ago, so /for me/, maintaining a 32-bit version
looks like a waste of time. And from the other answers, there's /perhaps/ one
in there who is still using a 32-bit digikam version.

Is it possible to freeze a 32-bit source (for older OS versions), and only
provide builds for 64-bit versions? After all, the 32-bit OSs seem to be
outdated (at least as far as Linux is concerned), so users are already behind
on security patches. If you provide source tarballs, the 32-bit users will
still have access to the program, but of course w/o the latest functionality.

I will be more precise here. There is no digiKam 32 bits branch dedicated to 32 OS.

The digiKam code is the same everywhere.

The problematic is about the dependencies library where i need to apply some patch while compilation of bundles 32 bits.

The most problematic is KF5. Until 5.36, it was easy, with more recent versions become infernal.

Until now QT5 5.9.1 compile fine, New 5.9.2 start to break the compatibility.

 

And if the libraries Digikam depends on are moving more and more to C++11/C+
+14, older systems will get forced out sooner rather than later anyway. It's
unreasonable to expect a small player wasting time for a platform the big ones
have dropped...

Btw, I thought digikam was moving away from the KDE frameworks, and aimed to
be 'QT only'?

digiKam is not fully a pure Qt5 application. It still 15/20 % of KF5 dependencies, the most complex to remove.

Look the full list of digiKam dependencies here :

https://cgit.kde.org/digikam-software-compilation.git/tree/DEPENDENCIES

Note : "opt" is this list want mean optional. Look well the explaination on the right side of list.

 

 

Remco

P.S. If indeed the Windows 32-bit build cross-compiles w/o problems, deprecate
it for a year or so after dropping the other 32-bit builds?

So typically for 6.0.0 main release...

Gilles Caulier

Le 03/11/2017 à 10:10, Gilles Caulier a écrit :

> I will be more precise here. There is no digiKam 32 bits branch
> dedicated to 32 OS.
> The digiKam code is the same everywhere.

yes, but it could possible to keep for say two years the last version
compatible for 32 bits?

no work, only some space on the server

thanks
jdd


--
http://dodin.org