Large-file support: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 02:43, 3 January 2022

Revision as of 03:57, 3 January 2022

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The usage of the large-file API in 32-bit programs had been incomplete for a long time. An analysis did show in 2002 that many base libraries of operating systems were still shipped without large-file support thereby limiting applications using them.<ref name="Largefile_Distros"/> The much-used [[zlib]] library started to support 64-bit large-files on 32-bit platform not before 2006.<ref name="ZLib_Changelog"/>

The problem disappeared slowly with PCPCs and workstations moving completely to [[64-bit computing]]. Microsoft Windows Server 2008 has been the last server version to be shipped in 32-bit.<ref name="Kolokythas_2007"/> [[Red Hat Enterprise Linux#Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x|Redhat Enterprise Linux 7]] was published in 2014 only as a 64-bit operating system.<ref name="RHEL_2014_32bit"/> Ubuntu Linux stopped delivering a 32-bit variant in 2019.<ref name="Cooke_2019_32bit"/> Nvidia stopped developingto develop 32-bit drivers in 2018 and they stopped deliveringdeliver updates after January 2019.<ref name="Addams_2018_Nvidia"/> Apple stopped developing 32-bit Mac OS versions in 2018 delivering [[macOS Mojave]] only as a 64-bit operating system.<ref name="Silver_2018_Apple"/> The [[End-of-life (product)|end-of-life]] for Windows 10 has been set to 2025 on the desktop which is related to the latest upgrades from old systems like Windows 7 & Windows 8 in January 2020 as some of those system ran on old computers built on the i386 architecture.<ref name="Microsoft_Windows7"/> [[Windows 11]] however will ship only as a 64-bit operating system since its first version in 2021.

A similar development can be seen in the mobile area. Google required to support 64-bit versions of applications in their app store by August 2019,<ref name="Sebayang_2019_Android"/> which allows to discontinue 32-bit support for [[Android (operating system)|Android]] later.<ref name="MW_2014"/> The shift towards 64-bit started in 2014 when all new processors were designed to a 64-bit architecture and [[Android Lollipop|Android 5]] ("Lollipop") was published in that year providing a fitting 64-bit variant of the operating system.<ref name="Android_User_2014"/><ref name="MW_2014"/> Apple had made shift in the year before starting to produce the 64-Bit [[Apple A7]] by 2013. Google started to deliver the development environment for Linux only in 64-bit by 2015.<ref name="APT_2015"/> In May 2019 the share of Android versions below 5 had fallen to ten percent.<ref name="Tenzer_2019"/> As [[Mobile app|app]] developers concentrate on a single [[executable|compilation]] variant, many manufacturers started to require Android 5 as the minimum version by mid 2019, for example Niantic.<ref name="Favero_2019"/> Subsequently the 32-bit versions were hard to get.<ref name="Reddit_2019"/>