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.
Quoting: barottoI'm starting to suspect they don't really know how these things work...
Developers should know. Especially when they make such drastic decision as to drop whole x86_32 multiarch. But yeah, it seems they had little clue about what they were doing.
What a bad idea. It will bring people away from Linux (look windows is much more convenient and just works!) and makes it harder for new users to come over to Linux.
What a bad day. These are the things, why Linux does not get successfull on the desktop.
An removing something that works, without a replacement is so dumb. They know that lots of users need that. And not only for gaming. :(
Micromegas Jun 21, 2019
Mageia is independent from any other distribution or company and is made by a well established community of volunteers (not only one or two enthusiasts). It's made by people who want a reliable Linux desktop so they use those solutions from all Linux "worlds" which work best for the desktop user. It's upgrade cycles are slower than other distributions (around 1.5 years), but stability and usability are great. Ideal distribution for non tech-savvy users.
Last edited by Micromegas on 21 June 2019 at 8:28 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestSo, the list of candidate replacements are: Debian, Mint Debian Edition, Manjaro, Endeavour, Mageia and i forgot another one: Suse ? Many will jump ship and the Linux gaming landscape will be fragmented as ever ! :P
Fedora and Arch can also be interesting options.
Last edited by Shmerl on 21 June 2019 at 8:33 pm UTC
Linux
0.84%
Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS 64 bit
0.20%
Linux 64 bit
0.08%
"Manjaro Linux" 64 bit
0.07%
Ubuntu 19.04 64 bit
0.07%
Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa 64 bit
0.06%
Doesn't really help with what to recommend to new users as these are all based on Ubuntu apart from Manjaro. About 50% of the total userbase must be using other distros.
wvstolzing Jun 21, 2019
Quoting: GuestSo, the list of candidate replacements are: Debian, Mint Debian Edition, Manjaro, Endeavour, Mageia and i forgot another one: Suse ? Many will jump ship and the Linux gaming landscape will be fragmented as ever ! :P
openSUSE will have to go through some changes soon -- though exactly what at the technical level I don't think anyone really knows right now. They're establishing a foundation independent from SUSE. Even the name & logo etc. will have to change. Check out: https://lwn.net/Articles/790298/
Quoting: GuestAlan pope of Canonical tried a few GoG games on 64 bits only 19.10 and guess what ? It is not going well.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Trying-GOG-Games-64-bit-Ubuntu
But at least they are thinking about it.
Would be better if they thought about this sooner, but it's something, I suppose.
Quoting: GuestSo, the list of candidate replacements are: Debian, Mint Debian Edition, Manjaro, Endeavour, Mageia and i forgot another one: Suse ? Many will jump ship and the Linux gaming landscape will be fragmented as ever ! :P
What about MX Linux? It's based on Debian and pretty straightforward to set up.
Micromegas Jun 21, 2019
Quoting: GuestSo, the list of candidate replacements are: Debian, Mint Debian Edition, Manjaro, Endeavour, Mageia and i forgot another one: Suse ? Many will jump ship and the Linux gaming landscape will be fragmented as ever ! :P
Fragmented? How so? With the Steam runtime the distribution you use doesn't matter as long as your distribution provides a suitable C runtime and graphics driver. And for GOG games you can just install missing libraries via your distribution repository if something is missing. I'm playing so called "Ubuntu compatible" games on Mageia since years now without any problems.
Quoting: ShmerlI'm surprised about what kind of assumption he was making. That it would "just work"? How?
I'm sure the only assumption Mr Pope was making was that yelling on the internet is not a good way to express an opinion. By politely and tactfully demonstrating the problems to the developers he has made his point constructively.
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