The default kernel for Pi4 and Pi5 on RPiOS 32-bit is actually 64-bit, because Pi5 can only run a 64-bit kernel (the newer arm core doesn't support 32-bit kernel mode instructions), and Pi4 just works better with a 64-bit kernel.• Why does https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentati ... figuration suggest for RPI4 on 32 bits to use kernel7l , but 2025-12-04-raspios-trixie-armhf-lite.img does not contain kernel7l?
We no longer ship the 32-bit Pi4 kernel with trixie because of this.
But you can't easily build a 64-bit kernel on a 32-bit OS (as that requires a cross-compile).
You can in theory build a kernel7l.img using the instructions from the docs page, and you can use it with "arm_64bit=0". But that isn't really recommended.
Using 64-bit RPiOS is strongly recommended on a Pi4 or Pi5, unless you absolutely need to move the sdcard to an older (32-bit only) Pi.
Statistics: Posted by dom — Mon Jan 05, 2026 7:17 pm