The future of 32-bit Linux

Actually I've used to run my previous PC for 5 years or so with a 64-bit kernel and a 32-bit distro. This was a nice solution. By then, no single application required more than 2G of RAM, the code was compact and used to load fast. I'd say that upgrading an old 32-bit system just by using a 64-bit kernel in compat mode is already a nice and easy step forward.

On ARM, I consistently found that 32-bit thumb2 code runs 20% faster than 64-bit armv8 code for compilation jobs, leading me to build my toolchains in 32-bit and run them on a 64-bit system in compat mode as well.

My feeling is that compat mode is another good solution to allow the kernel to abandon older 32-bit support (I mean at least the largest setups which do not make sense anymore).