Anyone still considering whether to update to 64-bit Linux kernels(opens in new tab) now has another big motivation after it was revealed 32-bit editions won’t be getting a major security fix.
Intel’s Pawan Gupta recently took to the lore.kernel.org mailing list to answer customer questions, one of which concerned the fix to Retbleed for 32-bit OS’.
“Intel is not aware of production environments that use 32-bit mode on Skylake-gen CPUs. So this should not be a concern.” Intel’s Peter Zijlstra chimed in to add: “Yeah, so far nobody cared to fix 32-bit. If someone *realllllly* cares and wants to put the effort in I suppose I’ll review the patches, but seriously, you shouldn’t be running 32-bit kernels on Skylake / Zen based systems, that’s just silly.”
