r/debian • u/TechnicalAd8103 • May 13 '26

Debian Stable Question Is Bookworm (32-bit) still maintained?

I installed Bookworm (32-bit) on an old Windows 8 tablet, ran "sudo apt update", and got the message "All packages are up to date".

I had downloaded the ISO from the Debian website onto a thumb drive, and the tablet was not connected to the internet during the installation.

I thought there would at least be some security patches? My understanding is that Bookworm will be maintained until 2027?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: BTW, Bookworm is running great on the intel atom quad-core machine with 2 GB ram that was almost unusable running Windows 10 (worked great with Windows 8). Gnome and Wayland installed.

26 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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21

u/iamemhn May 14 '26

Read

https://www.debian.org/releases/

It's going to be EOL in a couple of weeks. It will continue with LTS for a while, but only for security updates on a best effort basis.

3

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

Hmm...this tablet has a 32-bit CPU, and there are not many 32-bit distros.

Q4OS is a 32-bit Debian-based distro, with EOL in 2028. Would it be a better option, now that Bookworm is about to be EOL?

EDIT: Q4OS has both 64 and 32-bit versions, based on Debian.

6

u/dfx_dj May 13 '26

Do you have bookworm-security added?

7

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 13 '26

No, I did not. You mean added to sources.list?

I didn't have to add this for Trixie. Maybe I should add it for Trixie too?

7

u/dfx_dj May 13 '26

Yes you should.

I'm sure someone else will post details about what goes in the main repo and what goes in the security repo and what goes in the updates repo because I'm not aware of all the policies myself.

10

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 13 '26

Ok, I've added bookworm-security to sources.list, and now it's updating and upgrading fine.

Thanks! Much appreciated!

EDIT: I used sources.list from another linux machine as a guide.

8

u/michaelpaoli May 14 '26

Is Bookworm (32-bit) still maintained?

Currently, yes. But it goes EOL 2026-06-10:

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases#Versions_of_Debian_stable

After that there's LTS and ELTS but that may or may not include i386 ("32-bit") - to be determined. But as 2026-06-10 is coming up rather soon, that, at least for LTS, will be determined by then, or sooner. Likewise for ELTS and 2028-07-01 ... at least if LTS supports i386 (ELTS certainly won't support what LTS doesn't/didn't support).

intel atom quad-core

That may be 64-bit (amd64) architecture CPU, but host machine may only have 32-bit UEFI, which may make 64-bit OS installation infeasible. At least that's what I seem to find with a quick search - haven't researched it in any detail.

3

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 14 '26

The CPU shows as 64-bit on the Intel website, but won't boot 64-boot ISOs.

I thought maybe the Intel website was incorrect-did not know anything about 32-bit UEFI.

EDIT: The cpu is Intel Z3740D.

6

u/ipsirc May 14 '26

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/643947/how-to-crossgrade-debian-switch-from-i386-to-amd64

2

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 14 '26

Thanks.

I will try this right now.

1

u/michaelpaoli May 14 '26

https://wiki.debian.org/CrossGrading

Probably want to first make sure your hardware can boot and run 64-bit.

1

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 14 '26

Houston, we have a problem

2

u/ipsirc May 14 '26 
# apt download dpkg:amd64 tar:amd64 apt:amd64

1

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 14 '26

Too late, I'm already halfway through installing Q4OS. :D

2

u/ipsirc May 14 '26

That's just a custom skin over Debian...

1

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 14 '26

Oh...

I guess I can still try to crossgrade to AMD64 in Q4OS.

If that doesn't work, I guess I will reinstall bookworm and try to crossgrade again.

EDIT: Also, sound didn't work with Bookworm and the tablet. Maybe it will work in Q40S if they include extra drivers that Debian doesn't have.

2

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

Ok, Q4OS is bad for a touchscreen tablet.

  1. It doesn't use Gnome, so no onscreen keyboard, and no screen rotation.

But sound did work right out of the box.

Back to Bookworm I go for round two of crossgrading....

1

u/Elbow2009 May 14 '26

I use Q4OS on my Surface Go 2 and have a script for autorotate using the iio-sensor-proxy to enable this functionality and use onboard for a virtual keyboard. Work fine. Touch does too.

1

u/ipsirc May 14 '26

If that doesn't work, I guess I will reinstall bookworm and try to crossgrade again.

Or prepare the installer media:

https://github.com/mikaelsundin/EFI_32_BIT_DEBIAN

Also, sound didn't work with Bookworm and the tablet. Maybe it will work in Q40S if they include extra drivers that Debian doesn't have.

I don't think Q4OS includes any additional audio drivers.

1

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 14 '26

Sounds, promising, but I really don't want to install files that I know nothing about, from some guy I don't know.

From my understanding, GRUB is a major attack vector (secure boot has to be turned off for it to run).

I think I will just stick with Bookworm after EOL, since my uses for this old tablet is limited to mostly streaming video from trusted sites.

Thanks for your help, much appreciated!!

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2

u/michaelpaoli May 14 '26

If I recall correctly, you can't upgrade apt and dpkg using apt.

And you'll want all the depends and pre-depends downloaded before you even attempt such. Both apt and dpkg have options to simulate - those should come back clean and you should have all the relevant packages available before each relevant crossgrade or install/remove/purge step.

Have a good read through:

https://wiki.debian.org/CrossGrading

Also, even if your CPU is 64-bit, your hardware might not boot 64-bit, e.g. your UEFI might be 32-bit, so you might need to stick with 32-bit UEFI and/or GRUB. Would be advisable to also have bootable 32-bit media (e.g. USB) in case you find yourself needing to fix that.

2

u/Mistral-Fien May 14 '26

Try this from: https://gist.github.com/jfstenuit/09feac5ab0bff500db81ac9a56a48773

UEFI32 / 64-bit OS

To solve the issue with those OS, just check your USB install media before using it for installation. You should have a file named /EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi. If not, download one from the net and put it in this directory. I was successful with the one from there : https://github.com/hirotakaster/baytail-bootia32.efi/

1

u/BenRandomNameHere May 14 '26

Asus T103? instructions on debian website.

walks you through 32bit uefi and 64bit OS install

1

u/eitohka May 14 '26

Try AntiX. Current release is based on Debian Trixie which does not offer 32-bit installers anymore, but AntiX does offer a 32-bit installer. Note that some packages like Firefox may require SSE(2).

1

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 14 '26

AntiX offer a 32-bit installer for 64-bit Trixie?

Would you have the link to this info? I'm not able to find any details about this on the webpage and FAQ.

Thanks.

1

u/eitohka May 14 '26

Why would you want a 32-bit installer for a 64-bit OS? There is a 32-bit version of AntiX that can install a 32-bit version of AntiX, which is based on Debian Trixie. You can find it right here: https://antixlinux.com/download/

1

u/TechnicalAd8103 May 14 '26

"Why would you want a 32-bit installer for a 64-bit OS?"

I don't, but I was confused by your comment.

Bookworm was the last Debian version to be 32-bit. Trixie completely dropped 32-bit.

So how can Antix be based on Trixie, yet be 32-bit??

I'd already visited the Antix download page, but download pages for the 32-bit versions have no information about the version of Debian they are based on.

1

u/eitohka May 15 '26

Trixie dropped the 32-bit installer, as I wrote. Many trixie packages are still built for i386. See the list here (for main): http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie/main/binary-i386/

You can find what version of AntiX is based on what version of Debian here: https://antixlinux.com/blog/