I would like to drop armhf (armv6) support in #AlpineLinux. The only current hardware I am aware of that is armv6 is Raspberry Pi Zero series (EOL 2030). I don't think it is worth the extra effort to support both armhf (armv6) and armv7 at this point.

Do you think we should drop armhf to free up some resources?

It was brought to my attention that rpi 1 is still produced, which also uses armv6

@ncopa which kind of resources, build infrastructure or manpower?

@ncopa on @postmarketOS side, I looked at the wiki for armhf devices that may be impacted by armhf dropping.

postmarketOS supports 28 armhf devices. Out of all 28 armhf devices, 26 are actually armv7 running an armhf kernel/userspace for legacy reasons, and should be moved to armv7. Out of these, only one runs a mainline kernel.

The remaining 2 are the RPi1 and zero.

@ncopa Debian dropped armv6 support. So there is not much left.

Is Alpine still using 32bit time_t?

@ncopa what other options of Linux flavor (short of something like LFS) exist for armv6 if alpine drops support at this point?

@gfaster @ncopa I don't know, but the support is dropping in the whole Linux ecosystem. this is the whole reason why were thinking of dropping it: less and less people care

@Nero @ncopa mostly human resources

@fossdd @Nero yeah, reduce friction. More and more upstream drop support for it.

It would also help a little bit in disk usage on mirrors which is becoming a problem, and CI resources. None of those would make big difference but it is a little here and there.

One less thing to worry about.

@waldi @ncopa no, musl already bit the bullet and uses 64bit time_t

@ncopa In the embedded/industrial space I'm still seeing a surprising amount of ARM9 and expect those to go on quite a while, but that'd be v5, so even older. v7 seems like a more sensible target for Alpine 32bit support than trying to keep that /and/ v6 on life support together.

@ncopa@fosstodon.org My oldest device is on ARMv7. But can you also check with the pmOS devs to see if they have supported ARMv6 devices?

@ncopa They'll be producing them until 2030: https://endoflife.date/raspberry-pi

@gfaster @ncopa i'd say dietpi maybe though that's more SBC focused, and also debian based & apparently they've also dropped support for armv6 too

@socketwench @fun @ncopa @postmarketOS

That seems like a reason to drop armv6, so somebody is finally motivated to move those devices to armv7 :)

@gfaster @ncopa Gentoo linux and TinyCore Linux but TinyCore has no version 17 arm build yet

@fossdd @ncopa I have a rpi zero that I want to set up (I haven't yet, hence why I haven't voted, I have no skin in the game yet), it just seems like it'd be a shame to brick

@socketwench @pabloyoyoista what hardware supported by pmOS would be deprecated by this change?

@Orca @ncopa it wouldn't really affect us. We have a few armhf device ports but as it turns out all of them with the exception of two, actually target armv7-capable devices, so they should be moved to armv7. The two remaining are the Pi0 and Pi1. (see my post about this somewhere else in this thread)

@socketwench I would consider deprecating 2 out of something like 500+? to be a pretty fine tradeoff. The other 26 just need a bit of work on software to keep working if anybody has the interest

@nieuemma I dunno. I'd have to google that to find out

@ectaacte I think rpi 2 zero has 64 bit support, so you could still use it.

@ncopa I have AlpineLinux on an RPi 1 running pi-hole (head-less). More efficient and such a nice experience compared to RaspberryOS.

@mjwin yeah, I guess what I have been thinking so far is that if you still use RPi 1, which OS would make sense to run?

Even if we'd drop armhf now, you could still continue to use alpine 3.23 for a while.

@ncopa@fosstodon.org @mjwin Another owner of some RPi 1s here. They are just barely usable in 2026. It would be a shame to lose Alpine support but I wouldn’t be too bitter about it. Much like with i686, it’s a question of when the maintenance burden is too much for the tiny number of users. 🤷

@ncopa Removing armv7 would have major impact on postmarketOS as we still have many people actively working on devices with such CPUs. On the contrary armhf is pretty much dead.