14 DAY TRIAL // It's the first day of the month (February), which means that we can download an up-to-date ISO image of the Arch Linux operating system in case we want to deploy it on new PCs or reinstall.
Arch Linux 2017.02.01 was released a few hours ago, and it looks like it brings all the latest packages that have been pushed into the stable software repositories of the GNU/Linux distribution during the month of January 2017.
It's also the first ISO respin of Arch Linux powered by a kernel from the long-term supported Linux 4.9 kernel series. Specifically, Linux kernel 4.9.6 has been included in Arch Linux 2017.02.01.
However, the bad news (for some of you) is that the Arch Linux 2017.02.01 ISO image is the last to allow you to install the operating system on 32-bit (i686) hardware, a.k.a. old computers from 10 years ago, if you still have one of those in your basement.
The decision to deprecate 32-bit support for the official Arch Linux ISOs, which until today were offered as a dual-arch image supporting both 64-bit (x86_64) and 32-bit (i686) architectures, was made last month, as reported right here in this space.
Download Arch Linux 2017.02.01 now if you want to install the OS on 32-bit PCs
Therefore, if you still want to install Arch Linux on 32-bit PCs, today's Arch Linux 2017.02.01 release is your last chance of an up-to-date dual-arch image. You can download it right now from the official homepage or our website.
Of course, in time, Arch Linux 2017.02.01 will become obsolete, which means that you'll have to download a lot of updates from the official repos to have an up-to-date operating system after installation.
If you're nostalgic enough, you can also download the Arch Linux 2017.02.01 ISO image now and keep it safe somewhere on a backup disk to remind you that it's the last one to support 32-bit installations.
Next month's Arch Linux ISO respin, versioned 2017.03.01, will be the first to support only 64-bit installations. Of course, existing 32-bit Arch Linux systems will be supported with updates for nine months, until November 2017.
Let's not forget that if you run a healthy Arch Linux operating system on your machine(s), there's no need to download the Arch Linux 2017.02.01 image, just make sure you have all the latest updates installed using the "sudo pacman -Syu" command.