OS/CPU support: LTS SIG meeting

At the LTS SIG meeting we will discuss OS/CPU support for the next LTS version which will be supported for 5 years.

cppTango (TB's opinion):

OS

Linux

We should support all debian versions which have security support. According to https://wiki.debian.org/LTS bullseye(11) falls out of support in Aug 2026, so we should support bookworm(12) and trixie(13) in the beginning only. And also forky once it comes out (estimated in August 2027). All debian versions are being supported for the lifetime of the LTS version. All other distributions are supported on a best-effort basis as long as they get security support.

Windows

Windows 10 will not receive security support beyond Okt 2025 for free. But we right now don't limit the windows version and I would keep it like that. But if we are required to remove Windows 10 support we will do so. Also newer Windows versions will be supported if needed/requested.

We only test i686, x86_64 on Windows as nobody has tried Windows ARM64.

macosx

Currently testing is done on macos 15 (Sequoia). We would probably just use whatever gitlab/desy runner provides.

CPU architecture (no change)

• i686, x86_64, aarch64 (aka Apple M1, M2, ...), $otherEmbedded

Dependency versions

Keeping C++17 and cmake 3.18 as minimum versions. In addition all dependencies will be available on debian stable (or stable-backports) and oldstable-backports.