Re: [PATCH v2] x86: Start removing X86_X32_ABI

[Maciej W. Rozycki]

On Wed, 8 Jul 2026, Arnd Bergmann wrote:

> As I understand, it's a policy in Debian for debian-installer and
> the kernel packages to only provide kernels for the native
> architecture, i.e. 64-bit x86 kernels are only packaged for
> amd64 and not x32 or i686, and 64-bit Arm kernels are only
> packaged for arm64 but not armhf or formerly armel.

 Weird, x32 vs x64 for the Intel ISA or say n32 vs n64 for the MIPS ISA 
are psABI variants rather than architectures.  All are native, just using 
different register usage conventions.

 And the kernel is a bare metal application, it has nothing to do with the 
userland as far as the user psABI is concerned.  It could use yet another 
psABI and I suspect this is the case at least for some of the Linux ports 
(`-mregparm=' GCC option comes immediately to mind).  Insisting that the 
same compilation options are used for the kernel as with all the userland 
packages in a distribution seems artificial and unreasonable to me.

 BTW, at least with n32 the MIPS architecture permits CPU implementations 
that only support that psABI and not n64.  Never implemented, I believe, 
but just proves its nativity.

 FWIW,

  Maciej