As an update to the situation around Canonical planning to drop 32bit support (and Valve saying bye-bye to Ubuntu 19.10+ support), apparently they're not. Instead, the 32bit libraries will be frozen. Are you confused yet? I sure am.
Canonical's Steve Langasek has attempted to clarify the situation. Here's what they said:
I’m sorry that we’ve given anyone the impression that we are “dropping support for i386 applications”. That’s simply not the case. What we are dropping is updates to the i386 libraries, which will be frozen at the 18.04 LTS versions. But there is every intention to ensure that there is a clear story for how i386 applications (including games) can be run on versions of Ubuntu later than 19.10.
That's at least a little better, isn't it? They also said a little further:
[…] since the vast majority of i386-only software is also legacy (closed-source, will never be rebuilt), it also does not generally benefit from newer libraries […]
There's a pretty big difference from not being "included as an architecture", to having them available but frozen and still possible to use, isn't there? It's confusing, since that's not how it was originally explained. This is something that should have been said very clearly from the start.
Perhaps this might not be the epic disaster many people (myself included) thought it might turn out to be. We still have to wait and see how exactly they implement all this, and how it will affect gaming.
There's still going to be confusion and issues though, like upgrading drivers. Touching on that, Langasek said:
32-bit mesa will be available in the Ubuntu 18.04 repository. Note that mesa already gets updates in 18.04 which track the versions from later Ubuntu releases, as part of hardware enablement. If incompatibilities are introduced beyond 20.04 (which is the cutoff for hardware enablement backports for 18.04), we will need to address them on a case-by-case basis.
So it sounds like you're still going to be stuck in some ways. Seems like the proposal is still no good for Wine either (and so Steam Play too).
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Correct me if I am wrong but surly freezing the library would make it impossible to use newer GFX drivers.
I plan to upgrade my ryzen desktop CPU soon and may consider Navi GPU further down the line. How am I supposed to get the latest drivers if the packages are frozen?
I plan to upgrade my ryzen desktop CPU soon and may consider Navi GPU further down the line. How am I supposed to get the latest drivers if the packages are frozen?
2 Likes, Who?
Mohandevir Jun 23, 2019
Shouldn't Canonical began to discuss this decision with the parties involved before announcing anything officially?
It's getting uglier by the hour and Canonical are looking like Cowboys in the process.
Bad project managment.
Are you sure this is not what they intended by that? They announced in the beginning of 2018 that they would finally decide mid 2019 whether to continue with the 32bit distribution or not. But apparently no one, at least not me and most other people I read posts from though it would involve dropping 32 bit libraries for 64bit systems.
Poor communication definitely. But now there are discussions about going forward.
Discussions should have started behind closed Doors with the impacted players before going forward with the decision, imo.
Seems that's not what they did...
2 Likes, Who?
Correct me if I am wrong but surly freezing the library would make it impossible to use newer GFX drivers.
I plan to upgrade my ryzen desktop CPU soon and may consider Navi GPU further down the line. How am I supposed to get the latest drivers if the packages are frozen?
Canonical said something about case by case handling, but given it's not their priority, I wouldn't expect them to do it in timely fashion. For same reason Mesa users tend to prefer rolling distros, Ubuntu with some kind of special Mesa exception is not going to be a good choice. New hardware just amplifies the issue.
Last edited by Shmerl on 23 June 2019 at 7:33 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
Shouldn't Canonical began to discuss this decision with the parties involved before announcing anything officially?
It's getting uglier by the hour and Canonical are looking like Cowboys in the process.
Bad project managment.
Are you sure this is not what they intended by that? They announced in the beginning of 2018 that they would finally decide mid 2019 whether to continue with the 32bit distribution or not. But apparently no one, at least not me and most other people I read posts from though it would involve dropping 32 bit libraries for 64bit systems.
Poor communication definitely. But now there are discussions about going forward.
Conducting discussions this way is kind of like how in May 2000 Rudy Giuliani announced he was separating from his second wife during a press conference without first having told his second wife about it. Sure, it gets the job done. I'm sure he and his second wife had a lot to talk about after that press conference, although probably not as productively as other means would have yielded.
I can also cut off my arm to get rid of a hangnail.
I talked to one of the Ubuntu guys about their i386 plans 3 years ago, they only planned to drop the i386 installer, but not the whole suite. I'm also flabbergasted by yesterday's announcement.
Last edited by vector on 23 June 2019 at 7:46 pm UTC
7 Likes, Who?
Please make a Debian Valve edition asap.
(Not SteamOS, something using Gnome).
Thanks
(Not SteamOS, something using Gnome).
Thanks
0 Likes
Nevertheless Jun 23, 2019
Maybe Shuttleworth still plans on a Canonical Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2019. It would make Ubuntu more attractive if they don't focus on the 32 bit libs but on profitable projects instead.
I think that it's time for Arch, Manjaro, Debian or Fedora to become the new leading OS for the desktop.
And I also like Clear Linux OS as a replacement for Ubuntu because it is generally the fastest system and because you have collaboration potential with Intel. And Clear Linux also works very fast on AMD hardware.
There will be some initial problems with Nvidia drivers and other issues but I think that Clear Linux OS can be a perfect replacement for Ubuntu in the long term.
It will become clearer when Clear Linux adopts KDE Plasma.. .. Holy f.. it already has!
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=clear-linux-kde&num=1
1 Likes, Who?
Clear Linux becoming more consumer orientated, adopting KDE, Valve hiring for Kwin...hmmm...Maybe Shuttleworth still plans on a Canonical Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2019. It would make Ubuntu more attractive if they don't focus on the 32 bit libs but on profitable projects instead.
I think that it's time for Arch, Manjaro, Debian or Fedora to become the new leading OS for the desktop.
And I also like Clear Linux OS as a replacement for Ubuntu because it is generally the fastest system and because you have collaboration potential with Intel. And Clear Linux also works very fast on AMD hardware.
There will be some initial problems with Nvidia drivers and other issues but I think that Clear Linux OS can be a perfect replacement for Ubuntu in the long term.
It will become clearer when Clear Linux adopts KDE Plasma.. .. Holy f.. it already has!
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=clear-linux-kde&num=1
5 Likes, Who?
Sounds like Wine still won't work: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/i386-architecture-will-be-dropped-starting-with-eoan-ubuntu-19-10/11263/121?u=liamdawe
It's good that he is highlighting the problem with their proposed plan:
So the solutions proposed in [4] like containers and snaps based on 18.04 will not fully work.
That was quite obvious.
You should have put the previous sentence in too " 18.04 is already too old to fully support current Wine with (all) current features. " That means 18.04 is too old, and that will also be a problem for other programs.
It is possible to add PPAs in a container, but this comes down too again that the new ways probably will be way more complicated than we have now.
0 Likes
Shouldn't Canonical began to discuss this decision with the parties involved before announcing anything officially?
It's getting uglier by the hour and Canonical are looking like Cowboys in the process.
Bad project managment.
Are you sure this is not what they intended by that? They announced in the beginning of 2018 that they would finally decide mid 2019 whether to continue with the 32bit distribution or not. But apparently no one, at least not me and most other people I read posts from though it would involve dropping 32 bit libraries for 64bit systems.
Poor communication definitely. But now there are discussions about going forward.
Discussions should have started behind closed Doors with the impacted players before going forward with the decision, imo.
Seems that's not what they did...
Nope they didnt. The could also have done this open, present this as a proposal, and with a longer timeframe than 4 months to implement and test it. And then let various parties come with their inputs.
4 Likes, Who?
Mohandevir Jun 23, 2019
Shouldn't Canonical began to discuss this decision with the parties involved before announcing anything officially?
It's getting uglier by the hour and Canonical are looking like Cowboys in the process.
Bad project managment.
Are you sure this is not what they intended by that? They announced in the beginning of 2018 that they would finally decide mid 2019 whether to continue with the 32bit distribution or not. But apparently no one, at least not me and most other people I read posts from though it would involve dropping 32 bit libraries for 64bit systems.
Poor communication definitely. But now there are discussions about going forward.
Discussions should have started behind closed Doors with the impacted players before going forward with the decision, imo.
Seems that's not what they did...
Nope they didnt. The could also have done this open, present this as a proposal, and with a longer timeframe than 4 months to implement and test it. And then let various parties come with their inputs.
They could have done a thousand diffrent things... Except the one they just did.
#Facepalm
2 Likes, Who?
abelthorne Jun 23, 2019
Correct me if I am wrong but surly freezing the library would make it impossible to use newer GFX drivers.On LTS, they have what they call the Hardware Enablement Stack, which allows to update core components of the system over time, like the kernel, Mesa... So, despite having a version freeze for most of the apps in the repos when you use a LTS, you still have updates for the kernel and Mesa (albeit after a few weeks, not right when a new Ubuntu version is released).
I plan to upgrade my ryzen desktop CPU soon and may consider Navi GPU further down the line. How am I supposed to get the latest drivers if the packages are frozen?
If you stick to the version of Mesa from the repos, this shouldn't be a big issue, the 32 bit version should catch up with the one from 19.10 and later with the system they plan to implement. If you usually use a PPA to get a newer version, it will work for the 64 bit version but likely not for the 32 bit one.
1 Likes, Who?
I do not see how they could backpedal without recanting totally and lose face.In my experience, when someone comes out and simply says "I was wrong about X, so I'm changing my mind and I'm sorry for any problems I caused" they don't lose face. People are if anything impressed. But at a minimum, they sure lose a lot less face than if they stonewall forever and pretend they're totally right when it's obvious they're both wrong and screwing people over. Canonical never seem to have figured this out.
9 Likes, Who?
They DID talk about it beforeI think everyone was under the impression that what they were talking about was no longer distributing the OS as 32-bit, as in you'd need a 64-bit machine to run Ubuntu going forward. That wouldn't be a huge deal and they wouldn't be the first distro to go that way. Sure, there are still a few 32-bit machines out there (up until very recently I had one of them), but they're either not being updated much or they belong to people using Slack or some damn thing (I was the former).
I don't think anyone was aware they were planning this, which is a whole different ball game.
6 Likes, Who?
They DID talk about it before and my wild guess is at least Valve took notice of it. Hence their quick declaration afterwards with no much visible bargaining.
Possible Valve was aware and could not change their mind. There is this mailing list post from a year ago that outline this plan, someone on reddit just mentioned it: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2018-May/040348.html?_ga=2.61098156.1624633425.1561246225-23245439.1561246225
This should have been made a lot more public, it reminds me of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where the announcement of the plan to bulldozer the main characters house was buried in the cellar of the townhall. He could just have objected to it in time.
2 Likes, Who?
Clear Linux becoming more consumer orientated, adopting KDE, Valve hiring for Kwin...hmmm...Maybe Shuttleworth still plans on a Canonical Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2019. It would make Ubuntu more attractive if they don't focus on the 32 bit libs but on profitable projects instead.
I think that it's time for Arch, Manjaro, Debian or Fedora to become the new leading OS for the desktop.
And I also like Clear Linux OS as a replacement for Ubuntu because it is generally the fastest system and because you have collaboration potential with Intel. And Clear Linux also works very fast on AMD hardware.
There will be some initial problems with Nvidia drivers and other issues but I think that Clear Linux OS can be a perfect replacement for Ubuntu in the long term.
It will become clearer when Clear Linux adopts KDE Plasma.. .. Holy f.. it already has!
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=clear-linux-kde&num=1
I don't like the idea of an intel controlled distro used as a distribution recommended for games. They may try look beter then AMD. Choose optimisation which help them but hurt Ryzen,... Or maybe i'm paranoid.
4 Likes, Who?
I seriously would like to know how much of a burden maintaining 32 bit libraries there really is for Canonical. After all, they are still getting most of their packages directly from Debian and just recompile them, IIRC, and Debian isn't dropping support for newer versions.
Anyways, I wanted to wait updating my gaming system from 16.04 until 20.04 was released, seems to me that it rather will be Buster then.
Anyways, I wanted to wait updating my gaming system from 16.04 until 20.04 was released, seems to me that it rather will be Buster then.
5 Likes, Who?
Valve, you'r options are: Manjaro/Pure Arch, Clear Linux, Solus, FreeBSD!
Last edited by deathxxx on 23 June 2019 at 9:05 pm UTC
Last edited by deathxxx on 23 June 2019 at 9:05 pm UTC
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