Addition. The last entries of build.log is this:

---- snip ----

Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
[2024-10-25 20:55:17] lb chroot_install-packages install
P: Begin installing packages (install pass)...
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Package linux-headers-686 is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

Package linux-image-686-pae is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'linux-image-686-pae' has no installation candidate
E: Package 'linux-headers-686' has no installation candidate
E: An unexpected failure occurred, exiting...
P: Begin unmounting filesystems...
P: Saving caches...
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...

--- snap ---

Hope this helps.

(Build of amd64 is working like a charme)

Hans

Hello! Unfortunately the i386 kernel is no more, so it's not possible to build i386 images anymore. We just published a blog post with details earlier this week: https://www.kali.org/blog/end-of-i386-kernel-and-images/

Indeed, we have to cleanup various build scripts (like live-build-config) in order to disable anything related to i386, otherwise it's confusing.

Sorry for the sad news.

Hmm, I see....
Maybe it is possible, to let the latest and actual packages available in the repository so that one can rebuild his image in case of he needs a new build. This would not harm anything and will not need any further work.
We know then, ok, it is old stuff, but sometimes it is not important to run the newest stuff (i.e. with live systems). What do you think, can we do this?

If not, please drop me a note, so I can download all the i386-packages, before you delete them. I then have to create my own personal repo. Hope, this will not be necessary.

Best regards

Hans

P.S. Forgot: I saw the kernel packages still available in the repo!

Workaround:
I downloaded the two not found packages and its dependencies manually from the repo and put them below ~live-build-config/config/packages.chroot/.
Now it builds!

What I can not understand, why live-build did not find them. Maybe, it is because the version? I dowenloaded 6.10.11, but the latest version I saw is 6.11.. For the latest version there are no -pae* packages available, maybe this ius the reason dunno.
Ok, could solve this problem on an ugly way.

I would like to keep this issue open though, because I would like to be informed if i386 will be completely abandoned. Or is there another way?

Best

Hans

Hello, I won't be avail the coming week, let me ping Sophie to see what she thinks of that.

The package is still in the repository because packages that disappear like this in newer versions linger around until they are manually cleaned by some process (called "cruft cleaning"). And we also have a safety net that keeps packages around for a few days after their actual removal.

But the truth is that the i386 kernel is gone (entirely, it's not only about PAE vs non-PAE), and will disappear for good in the not too distant future. It's already gone from kali-rolling and will go away from kali-dev soon.

Feel free to keep a copy of the packages in a personal repository if you wish, but that's something that is unlikely to be viable for very long.

I'm not sure what's your use case for an i386 image, but the architecture in itself is becoming only useful to run 32 bit applications on an otherwise 64 bit machine... i.e. i386 packages are here to be co-installed together with amd64 packages to support legacy applications. Running old computers with 32 bit x86 CPU is no longer a supported use case for the i386 architecture.

Hi Raphael,

thanks for the info. I already kept the actual packages in my /packages.chroot/ folder. However, I would like to know, if you will delete ALL packages with i386 from the repo. If so, I would like to mirror all these packages before they are completely deleted.

I suppose, rsync or curl will do the trick, will it? Or do I have to use ftp or http?

You asked me for the case I need i386. Well, I am using an EEEPC for my work when I am on the road. It is small, has a good battery runtime and fits all the needs I have. There are several livefile systems I can start from an sd-card for special purposes, for
example rescue systems like rescatux, RIP-Linux, Trinity-Rescue-Kit, Super-Grub-disk, then partition systems like drbl-live or clonezilla, password-crackers like ophcrack and security-analyze, which is here kali-live (my own version in German, added tools from the repo and from 3rd-party). So I do not want to miss it.

And as you know: the EEEPC got an Intel Atom cpu, which is 32-bit.

It is just, that the EEEPC ist my good fellow since years.

Maybe other people might miss i386, too.

It would be nice, if you could inform me, if all 32-bit packages are deleted or not.

Thank you very much.

Hans

Please let the i386-packages stay for a few days from now on. I am downloading the i386 packages for myself, but this is lasting a rather long time.
Sadly I have to mirror the wole repo (including armhf, amd64 and all other architectures). As adviced I was using the following command:

rsync -avH ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de::kali /my_folder/kali/

but I suppose, there is a better way, isn't it? I might use >> "--exclude="armhf" --exclude="amd64" --include="i386" <<, but then it might not download any files not named like the architecture,
files like"packages.gz".

My actual solution is to download everything, then using the "find" command for all unnecessary architecture files and delete the rest manually. Yes, I know, bad solution.

If there is an easier way (simple commandline, not some big shell or python script), please let me know.

Best

Hans

if you will delete ALL packages with i386 from the repo

No we don't, at the moment it's only kernel and kernel-related packages. We don't actively remove it, however Kali is repo is updated from Debian repo, it's an automatic process.

It would be nice, if you could inform me, if all 32-bit packages are deleted or not.

Please read https://www.kali.org/blog/end-of-i386-kernel-and-images/, this part:

What about packages, you may ask? i386 packages remain, as long as they can be rebuilt. Which means, as long as there are people to maintain it and fix i386-specific issues as they arise. One of the biggest area that keeps i386 alive is gaming: old games that were compiled for 32-bits x86 are still around, and enjoyed by gamers. Thanks to that, we can hope that a baseline of packages will remain for i386 for the time coming. And at the same time, we can expect other areas and ecosystems to drop i386 support as they see fit, to reduce maintenance efforts. So the overall number of i386 packages will slowly go down over the years, that’s for sure.

Even with a local copy of the i386 packages that are needed to build i386 live images... Please note that i386 support is also something that exists in live-build (the tooling to build live images, maintained by Debian at https://salsa.debian.org/live-team/live-build). At some point, support for i386 will also be removed from there.