Canonical have released a statement on Ubuntu and 32bit support, will keep select packages

@Elke

Regarding Ubuntu Studio, it's probably to do with all the 32bit binary only vst plugins that are out there.

Quoting: GuestI care very little. I have read the full statement and it is clear to me that damage control continues.

They still tell me to my face i shouldn't use the 32 bit software i am currently using. Either i am a miscreant or simply an insignificant edge case. And long live to snaps. They are right, we are wrong. They did not fuck up, they are being magnanimous with us. Whether one finds this satisfying or not, it is not a U-turn.

So, i have one year and half to work out a solution with another distro which is plenty enough.

Me too, i am curious about what valve will say. Whether Canonical's compromise will work out well enough or not for steam games, i doubt Valve will accept to depend on Canonical whims.

I would be surprised we get a final answer soon after having read one of their comments about the lack of real desktop distro. My guess is they have already been looking for a while.

indeed this is not a u-turn, but only a postponing of the same "intentions," as Patola rightly pointed out earlier, that were never clearly stated as a public announcement (rather what sounded to nearly everyone like an announcement that i386 install images would be axed, which isn't even close to the same thing).

i also don't think the form this postponing is planned to take is going to go off without many hitches either. users will likely best be served to avoid ubuntu entirely if they don't want to hit any snags.

Quoting: GuestMaybe I'm paranoid but I think this is actually about Canonical trying to force everyone to use Snaps, and they probably think they have the weight to do it, but if that's the case they're delusional.

not paranoia, the evidence is there and being filtered through your experiences to afford you the intuition of a likely answer. it's just your brain functioning, and i'm wondering the same about their angles ;3 it's not like canonical has a history of trying to get people invested in their own separate project ecosystems /s mhmhhaha

the discussions linked by f.ultra also make this rollout of news, etc, and this light-backpedaling look that much more amateur, frankly. the whole thing smacks of carelessness, and not about all topics entirely, but about some very important consequences. are valve and codeweavers not interested? surely if ubuntu desktop adoption and growth are part of canonical's vision, they would be considered fairly important factors. Owo

if canonical wanted valve to support 32-bit-support monetarily, was this the best decided approach? maybe i'm stupid, but i can't tell what parts of any of this make coherent sense.

Quoting: GuestJust how many 32 bit apps do you run on your machine? I run one, steam.

The app used to send declarations on Polish taxes electronically is an Adobe Air application which works on GNU/Linux via its old 32-bit runtime.

(OTOH, containerizing it will probably be the easier and safer way to support it, so...)

I don't think Ubuntu has to maintain a legacy-compatible public image. They can move on. There are lots of other distros to choose from. Think of this as an opportunity. You could fork 18.04 and call it Legbunt. It would be totally retro compatible and hipster (read: no one would donate). Sarcasm aside, there will be other options. If you really enjoyed Ubuntu for gaming all this time, well, that is unfortunate. Sorry.

Given that part of the reason for dropping support for 32-bit libraries is the effort required to perform QA, would it be worth running a fundraiser so those who care about continued multiarch support can contribute towards a solution? Would Canonical be open to such a solution - it seems a better use of the community's time and effort than the angst out there at the moment...

Quoting: riusma

Quoting: TobiSGD

Quoting: GuestI can see why they want to remove 32 bit libs because it's a ton of work.

But a ton of work for whom? They still get the majority of their packages directly from Debian, throwing a patch on one or the other package and just compile. If Debian still supports newer versions of 32 bit libraries, how much work is there really to be done for canonical?

I think that this discussion on Twitter is interesting (imho) on that subject (Neal Gompa is from Fedora). :)

Very interesting discussion, indeed, explaining in detail why maintaing 32bit libs is not easy for those distributions which really care that everything works.

He mentions Mageia a few times, e.g. here: https://mobile.twitter.com/Det_Conan_Kudo/status/1142766407047925760

"Just for note, of all the major distributions today, the only one I know of that still makes 32-bit x86 equal priority as 64-bit x86 for releases, update QA, etc. is
@mageia_org
because its user base of 32-bit users is *much* higher than most of the other distributions."

I cite this to emphasize how important the normal desktop user is for Mageia. Let's explain why this is so: Because Mageia is purely made by "normal" desktop users AND have also absolutely no company interests or dependencies lurking in the background: not financially nor technically. And they are luckily big enough to provide good quality assessment. Yes there are lots of Linux distributions from independent people but only a few are not derivates and have enough manpower to do enough QA.

The desktop user is not the real "customer" for the big Linux distributions. I guess this is the core of the problem.


Last edited by Micromegas on 25 June 2019 at 5:22 am UTC

Why not just use a kind of Snap or flatpak to keep those 32bit libraries around that are needed?
We're mostly talking about Steam and Wine here, both could be packaged with what they need. Sure, that means some minimal bloat, but disk space is really damn cheap (I just bought a 2 TB SSD (!!) for under 400$, so... yeah).

Or, as Canonical said in the announcement, use container technology to keep a "fresh" 32bit environment around for those applications that need it.

I just don't really see the need to keep them around in PPAs, which I think is Canonical's main point here.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 25 June 2019 at 5:15 am UTC

Bad attitudes toward Canonical and Ubuntu are seriously laughable at this point. So much overblown hyperbole, for years.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPWhy not just use a kind of Snap or flatpak to keep those 32bit libraries around that are needed?
We're mostly talking about Steam and Wine here, both could be packaged with what they need. Sure, that means some minimal bloat, but disk space is really damn cheap (I just bought a 2 TB SSD (!!) for under 400$, so... yeah).

Or, as Canonical said in the announcement, use container technology to keep a "fresh" 32bit environment around for those applications that need it.

I just don't really see the need to keep them around in PPAs, which I think is Canonical's main point here.

I got 4 drives ~3 TB total around 98% full, while having installed 149/320 games. Every containerization would make thing more difficult for new users. And we barley reached a point when Linux gaming is not considered hard. And for the price- remember it is dependent on individual peoples income. For example, in my country you could expect to get paid around 460$ monthly, making such SSD too expensive (Even if relatively cheap per gigabyte). And that is not worst case scenario like Brazil either.

Quoting: GryxxI got 4 drives ~3 TB total around 98% full, while having installed 149/320 games.

Well, there is your problem.
Only have games installed you actually play. At no point do I have more than 5-10 games or so installed.
Don't blame others for your inability to keep your drive cleaned up, that's your responsibility.

Besides, the largest part of games are assets, not libraries. It would be interesting to have some studies on actual numbers, but I doubt the part that would be "saved" by having libraries only once would be more than 10% of the total, if that much.

Quoting: GryxxEvery containerization would make thing more difficult for new users. And we barley reached a point when Linux gaming is not considered hard.

That's a joke, right?
Containerization is the easiest thing for new users. You just need to install the program you want and it WILL work, because it is guaranteed to contain everything it needs.
All other approaches will (occasionally) have you install additional software just to be able to run X.

Quoting: GryxxAnd for the price- remember it is dependent on individual peoples income. For example, in my country you could expect to get paid around 460$ monthly, making such SSD too expensive (Even if relatively cheap per gigabyte). And that is not worst case scenario like Brazil either.

Too bad for these people, but those are not the countries pushing technologies, or playing much of a role in business decisions for developers, etc.
Not everyone is in the situation to be able to have and maintain a high-end gaming rig. That's not fair, but such is life.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 25 June 2019 at 7:47 am UTC