Where does this constraint come from? Homebrew is written in Ruby.
To cut down on compilation from source issues? Or Homebrew uses language features from Ruby versions greater than what Apple shipped in their latest 32-bit supported OSX versions (as homebrew insists on using the system default binaries)?
In other words: at bottle creation time (server-side), Homebrew tells the compiler to output code that runs on older CPUs. The downside of this is that end users who install bottles never get to enjoy the benefits of latest CPU instruction sets, such as SSE 4.1/4.2.
From time to time, Homebrew raises the bar to keep the balance between performance and compatibility. From Homebrew 1.9.0, bottles are built to use the features of the Penryn/Core 2 microarchitecture or higher, or in other words: Homebrew no longer supports CPU microarchitectures older than Penryn/Core 2.
This is exactly what the bottle bot does, building the same formulas you have on your machine. Why should this no longer work?
While I agree in that building from source is somewhat at Homebrew’s core (as that’s what happens at bottle creation time), the intention is to deliver core packages to end users via bottle as often as possible.
> Linuxbrew does not currently support 32-bit x86 platforms. It would be possible for Linuxbrew to work on 32-bit x86 platforms with some effort. An interested and dedicated person could maintain a fork of Homebrew to develop support for 32-bit x86.