As you might have heard by now, Canonical has made the decision to drop 32bit support from Ubuntu 19.10 onwards.
Writing on the mailing list, as well as this post on Ubuntu's Community Hub, Canonical gave a reminder that the decision isn't coming without warning. It was proposed last year and it was followed up with another post detailing a final decision to be made in the middle of 2019. So here we are, the decision seems to have been made.
The problem isn't hardware, as likely around 99% of people nowadays have a 64bit capable computer. Going by our own statistics, from what 2,254 users told us only 4 are using a 32bit Linux distribution. The issue then, is mainly software and libraries needed to actually run 32bit applications. This is where it sounds like there's going to be plenty of teething issues, with a number of people not too happy about the decision.
Steam, for example, is one such application along with plenty of 32bit games that will likely never get updated, although Canonical did say they're "in discussions" with Valve about it. There's also GOG, Humble Store and itch.io which all provide a number of direct-download 32bit games, which do not supply the required 32bit libraries to run. It doesn't sound like they have been given any thought (at least they haven't been mentioned).
Another of the major problems being Wine, with a discussion now happening on their mailing list. The discussion doesn't seem to be too positive, with developer Henri Verbeet even saying "I think not building packages for Ubuntu 19.10 would be the only practical option.", although Andrew Eikum's idea of using the Steam Runtime could be an interesting way around it.
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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" The issue then, is mainly software and libraries needed to actually run 32bit applications. This is where it sounds like there's going to be plenty of teething issues, with a number of people not too happy about the decision.'
in the mean time, you can run windows 1.0 applications on windows 10...
what is the point of the system being open source, if we cant even run the apps we want? where is the freedom on it?
yes i can use other distro, but what if all the major ones does the same (the ones which are base for the rest) i'm not planning to support my self.
windows never looked so good.
Last edited by elmapul on 21 June 2019 at 2:37 am UTC
in the mean time, you can run windows 1.0 applications on windows 10...
what is the point of the system being open source, if we cant even run the apps we want? where is the freedom on it?
yes i can use other distro, but what if all the major ones does the same (the ones which are base for the rest) i'm not planning to support my self.
windows never looked so good.
Last edited by elmapul on 21 June 2019 at 2:37 am UTC
2 Likes, Who?
The main problem is for novice friendly distros, most of them are based on Ubuntu so they will end having to implement their own custom solution for 32 bit support or simply move to another base distro.
Is quite a stupid move in the end that could negatively affect new Linux users...
Is quite a stupid move in the end that could negatively affect new Linux users...
6 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Jun 21, 2019
Quoting: ShmerlYup, everyone adopted flatpak except Ubuntu. This is going to end up like Mir, Unity, Upstart, etc. Where they'll bend to the popular vote after a release or two. After they lose all their users to other distributions.Quoting: slaapliedjeThey are doing this only to try to promote their own Snap package management, because no one really wants to use it, and more and more projects are moving to flatpak, or just releasing AppImages (I know Cura does this, I do wish the maintainer of the debian package would update it...)
Granted, it's my understanding that snap is friendlier to commercial packages, vs flatpak is more for running newer / sandboxed open source software. I personally stay away from snap, because it seems about as clean as random android app stores.
I think Flatpak overall has wider backing, and is viewed is a lightweight sandboxing solution. When it comes to such bundling, I usually see Flatpak discussed, almost never Snap. And I doubt their Snap push will help prevent massive migration of gamers from Ubuntu. Canonical really didn't handle this well.
The thing I just don't get... they base off Debian, and I don't see Debian making any moves to drop support for 32bit libraries, hell they still support i386 distributions when most have dropped that.
https://release.debian.org/buster/arch_qualify.html
Hell there is still a Debian fork for m68k.
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slaapliedje Jun 21, 2019
Quoting: elmapul" The issue then, is mainly software and libraries needed to actually run 32bit applications. This is where it sounds like there's going to be plenty of teething issues, with a number of people not too happy about the decision.'Ha, that's a STRONG maybe for running older Windows stuff in Windows 10. I mean I've seen many older applications run better with Wine than in Windows 10.
in the mean time, you can run windows 1.0 applications on windows 10...
what is the point of the system being open source, if we cant even run the apps we want? where is the freedom on it?
yes i can use other distro, but what if all the major ones does the same (the ones which are base for the rest) i'm not planning to support my self.
windows never looked so good.
But the point here is, imagine if Windows 10 dropped 32bit support. I'd guess roughly 80% of things would stop working entirely. In the Windows world 64bit native applications were never that wide spread.
9 Likes, Who?
Quoting: chancho_zombieQuoting: sprocketI wouldn't move to an Ubuntu-based derivative like Mint, though, because the decisions that affect Ubuntu will affect those derivatives.
I have Mint installed on a netbook :><::><:
if they wanted they could provide a third party repo on opensuse OBS, it's really easy. I'm pretty sure if Ubuntu drops all 32bit libs all together someone will stand up and maintain a 3rd party repo.
straight from the mailing list:
"The immediate question for me is whether to even bother trying to package Wine for Ubuntu 19.10 and up. The suggestion from Ubuntu is to use the 32 bit libraries from 18.04, which will be supported until 2023. It's theoretically possible for me to build the 32 bit side on the OBS using the libraries from 18.04, but that would lead to a mismatch in library versions the 32 and 64 bit sides were built against. Apt requires the i386 and amd64 versions of packages match or it will refuse to install them, so unless that changes, users of 19.10 and up will be unable to install the 32 bit libraries they need to run Wine, unless they downgrade a significant part of their system to the 18.04 versions."
3 Likes, Who?
darthbasselope Jun 21, 2019
Well if Pop_OS! and LinuxMint also drop 32 bit support I will have to switch to Debian, Solus, Manjaro, or another distro when the next LTS comes out kinda a bummer I was enjoying Ubuntu and learning it well guess I will have to pick up on the nuances of some other distros. who knows maybe I will be saying btw I use Arch lol.
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Is Steam officially supporting Debian, as well, or are they only the LTS version of Ubuntu?
Ubuntu more and more is reminding me of Apple or Microsoft, in that they have one way of doing things, and you're forced to do it their way. (And because they're the big market share, other smaller distros are forced to go that route, as well.) Slackware gets a bum rap, but it doesn't stand in your way at all. Want to use systemd? You can put it in, if you so choose and are handy at rebuilding things. Want to use Wayland or Gnome? There are packages for it. Don't want to use pulseaudio? OK. PAM? We don't talk about PAM. ;)
Ubuntu more and more is reminding me of Apple or Microsoft, in that they have one way of doing things, and you're forced to do it their way. (And because they're the big market share, other smaller distros are forced to go that route, as well.) Slackware gets a bum rap, but it doesn't stand in your way at all. Want to use systemd? You can put it in, if you so choose and are handy at rebuilding things. Want to use Wayland or Gnome? There are packages for it. Don't want to use pulseaudio? OK. PAM? We don't talk about PAM. ;)
3 Likes, Who?
This is a terrible move in general, and not for games specifically. As outdated as it is, 32-bit is still used by current software; so they aren't just breaking backwards compatibility, they are making the distro incompatible with lots of software. Maybe people shouldn't be making 32-bit software now... but Ubuntu is just one distro of a minority desktop OS; do they seriously think they are in a position to make demands? "Everyone needs to change because it is too much work for us to keep supporting those libs".
And their "solutions" are laughable, especially considering that Ubuntu is supposedly focused on user friendliness. Linux for human beings, the newbie distro, it just works... except a lot of things don't work at all anymore. And what their suggest? GPU pass through.
As for games, developers generally targeted Ubuntu specifically. What happens when Ubuntu of all things stops working? How the heck can we ask for developers to support Linux when the "biggest" and "default" distro suddenly breaks all games? Valve were at the point where they ambitiously wanted every game on Steam to work on Linux; now games with official Linux support, as well as default Wine, will stop working on Ubuntu. I'm not sure they could cause more damage if they tried. The only saving grace is that, as FOSS, no single company can control Linux entirely.
I'm still hoping that they revert this change on 20.04. Maybe this was just a test run, or a gimmick to make people panic and start publishing 64 bit. But well, my next distro certainly won't be Ubuntu-based.
And their "solutions" are laughable, especially considering that Ubuntu is supposedly focused on user friendliness. Linux for human beings, the newbie distro, it just works... except a lot of things don't work at all anymore. And what their suggest? GPU pass through.
As for games, developers generally targeted Ubuntu specifically. What happens when Ubuntu of all things stops working? How the heck can we ask for developers to support Linux when the "biggest" and "default" distro suddenly breaks all games? Valve were at the point where they ambitiously wanted every game on Steam to work on Linux; now games with official Linux support, as well as default Wine, will stop working on Ubuntu. I'm not sure they could cause more damage if they tried. The only saving grace is that, as FOSS, no single company can control Linux entirely.
I'm still hoping that they revert this change on 20.04. Maybe this was just a test run, or a gimmick to make people panic and start publishing 64 bit. But well, my next distro certainly won't be Ubuntu-based.
11 Likes, Who?
Didn't Valve select Debian for SteamOS? So Valve would simply swap Ubuntu with Debian as most recommended target. Quite natural to expect that.
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Quoting: slaapliedjeI'm a huge supporter of Debian as a desktop / server, whatever.Sounds like a good system if you're still in the reformat-every-year-or-two mindset. That was really an XP era thing that I find pretty annoying these days. I don't like major upgrades, thus the move to a rolling release years ago. Theoretically never have to reinstall? "Sign me up," is what I thought.
It really goes like this, use stable with backports (namely kernel / nvidia driver, if you have such hardware, etc.) with the debian-multimedia repo, and you're pretty much set. Then you can wait about a year into stable, then switch to testing, since their release cycles seem to be about every 2 years. Just note that testing gets a bit unstable right after a release, and switch to stable at that point so the couple months of all the new crap coming from experimental and unstable don't break your system.
Coming from someone who has used it since the late 90s :)
Not saying you're doing it wrong, -- it's your system -- just commenting my preference.
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