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.
Quoting: SchattenspiegelMake Flatpaks(and snaps) not eat unreasonable storage space and bandwith, integrate well into DE themes, update and manage(including dependencies) through the systems packet manager (at least graphically)
I'd say done on all accounts.
Storage - once you have core runtimes needed by the apps installed the downloads are not that bigger than regular packages. Runtimes are shared so quickly it becomes no problem. So yeah, first time you use Flatpak it takes a bit, afterwards it's pretty reasonable.
DE integration - most of the popular themes work out of the box. With more exotic ones simply install them in user folder and they'll work.
Packet mgr - both Gnomes and KDE's software centers work with Flatpaks.
Quoting: GuestQuoting: ArtenI 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.How would they hide this in an open-source system? And I think that the reality paints a different picture. Clear Linux is the fastest system for AMD hardware: Benchmarks Of OpenMandriva's AMD Zen Optimized Linux Distribution Against Ubuntu, openSUSE, Clear Linux
I don’t think they need hiding. If they can say “this way is beter for our CPU”, then its ok. Benchmark is actual state. Now clear linux isnt officialy suported by steam, if that change...
Also there seems to be a lot of complaining about Ubuntu and the focus of Canonical. I wonder how many users donated even a single cent for Ubuntu's development? All I see is complaining and very little constructive criticism as well. Such attitudes hurt OSS. It should be obvious by now that if Valve gives up, Ubuntu drops desktop development we are back to square one.
Quoting: poiuz"Nice" "upgrade" from "Create stem library on XXX"Quoting: GryxxSo, how you can install games to non-system drive? As i recall, flatpak Steam is isolated from the rest of OS. You cannot go out of flatpak's file system.You can configure the sandbox (I don't think there is a GUI, yet): Flatpak Sandbox Permissions
You can put your Flatpaks anywhere you want, too: Flatpak installation
Quoting: RedfaceI just copy what I wrote earlier in one of the other threads:
...</snip>...
A lot of online publication and posters claimed that it would be impossible, but this is Linux not Mac or Windows so there will always be ways for users to do what they want differently than their distribution providers. Do not believe everything you read.
...</snip>...
Well, normally I don't tend to comment on a lot of stuff in the Linux world, simply because (as Redface says) there's always ways round everything.
link
I run Puppy Linux. Have done for 5 years or so. A lot of our software is community-built, though some Pups are based on Ubuntu binaries, and have access to the Ubuntu repos for the release they're based on. However, they're not 'clones'; Puppies are quite unique.
I'm not a hard-core gamer. I like the occasional spell with some of the older, first-person shooters (Cube, Doom, etc.)
We're not 'purists' with Puppy. If we can't find dependencies through our own package manager, we poach what we need from other locations. Just because your own repos don't have something, why give up when what you need is always available somewhere else?
Pkgs.org is a very good resource for this.
Mike. ;)
Quoting: chancho_zombiecome on Debian?? haven't tried it recently but does it still use a ncurses installer?? sorry but it's not user friendly.
Which decade was this "not recently"?
Debian has a graphical installer for 12 years now...
Quoting: SatoruThey didn't miss it
They dont care
Gamers are not their customers.
I get that (though I'm not sure it's clever to p**s off too many people). But what about WINE users...?
Quoting: chancho_zombieps: or maybe this is intentional? and they are trying to pushThis crossed my mind as well, although I'm not sure if there has been any investment in creating a Steam snap beyond the work Ikey did before he left Solus. I wouldn't be surprised if a Steam snap is introduced in time for 19.10 (because I think they would prefer to avoid recommending Flatpak to their users if possible), and certainly I expect there to be a Steam snap by 20.04. I could be wrong, but I don't think most Ubuntu Steam users would go for setting up "Running Steam in a LXD system container".flatpak/snap ?
It's not that I think they decided to stop updating 32-bit builds of libraries with the intent to promote snaps, just that it could be an added bonus.
Last edited by vector on 24 June 2019 at 12:32 pm UTC
Nevertheless Jun 24, 2019
Quoting: GryxxQuoting: NeverthelessSo, how you can install games to non-system drive? As i recall, flatpak Steam is isolated from the rest of OS. You cannot go out of flatpak's file system.Quoting: x_wingQuoting: Luke_NukemI just purged all *386 libs from my install, including Steam. Then installed Steam via flatpak...
No. Issues. At. All.
But this doesn't solve HumbleBumble or GOG. Though I do seem to recall and automated GOG->flatpak creator?
And what about proton games? Do they work without problems?
I have no problems at all.
EDIT: Without changing location of Steam, of course. For example leave Steam (and some games) on SSD and keep rest of them on two separate HDD drives.
You can do it with a flatpak override like described here:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1086529/how-to-give-a-flatpak-app-access-to-a-directory
or you can mount partitions into the [edit: Steam flatpak] packages folder.
Last edited by Nevertheless on 24 June 2019 at 1:40 pm UTC
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