Update: Canonical are now saying 32bit libraries will be "frozen" and not entirely dropped.
Original article:
Things are starting to get messy, after Canonical announced the end of 32bit support from Ubuntu 19.10 onwards, Valve have now responded.
Speaking on Twitter, Valve dev Pierre-Loup Griffais said:
Ubuntu 19.10 and future releases will not be officially supported by Steam or recommended to our users. We will evaluate ways to minimize breakage for existing users, but will also switch our focus to a different distribution, currently TBD.
I'm starting to think we might see a sharp U-turn from Canonical, as this is something that would hit them quite hard. Either way, the damage has been done.
I can't say I am surprised by Valve's response here. Canonical pretty clearly didn't think it through enough on how it would affect the desktop. It certainly seems like Canonical also didn't speak to enough developers first.
Perhaps this will give Valve a renewed focus on SteamOS? Interestingly, Valve are now funding some work on KWin (part of KDE).
Looks like I shall be distro hopping very soon…
To journalists from other websites reading: This does not mean the end of Linux support, Ubuntu is just one distribution.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
gradyvuckovic Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: keanI would even pay for it if everything works well.
I'd happily sign up to that, $10/month for a Valve developed Linux OS which provides the best possible gaming experience for Linux? Hell yes, give me that.
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Eleven years of loving Ubuntu has also meant eleven years of growing exasperation with Canonical. This latest announcement feels like just another in a series of boldly taken stumbles made in the name of Canonical progress.
Unity desktop, Mir, that phone thing and its convergence, It feels like another case of Canonical imagining itself as a pack leader, shouting, "This way, Linux!" only to find out hardly anyone's following them. Mir, Mir, Mir, Mir, naaaah, Wayland. Unity eeeiiiiiiggghhhht---er, Gnome 3. They'll go off again, being all "64 bit is the way!!!" and everyone else will be like, "Mebs, but we'll hang onto 32 bit for now, yeah?"
Unless they drop Linux support entirely, I don't think Valve's next move will surprise me at all:
I'll be sad to leave Ubuntu for what will probably be the last time, but I'm excited to see where gaming on Linux goes next. Whereever it goes, I'm confident it's not going away.
Unity desktop, Mir, that phone thing and its convergence, It feels like another case of Canonical imagining itself as a pack leader, shouting, "This way, Linux!" only to find out hardly anyone's following them. Mir, Mir, Mir, Mir, naaaah, Wayland. Unity eeeiiiiiiggghhhht---er, Gnome 3. They'll go off again, being all "64 bit is the way!!!" and everyone else will be like, "Mebs, but we'll hang onto 32 bit for now, yeah?"
Unless they drop Linux support entirely, I don't think Valve's next move will surprise me at all:
- I can see them sidling up to one of the more "core" distros: Suse, Debian, or Redhat/Fedora;
- I can see them doubling down with SteamOS, expanding it with apps, adding more and more desktop functionality, integrating something like a flatpak software center.
- I can see them leaning over to the Solus crew and saying, "So, what is you're working on? You say you've built it all yourselves? Hmmm, would you like some help with that?"
I'll be sad to leave Ubuntu for what will probably be the last time, but I'm excited to see where gaming on Linux goes next. Whereever it goes, I'm confident it's not going away.
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Quoting: gradyvuckovicI'd happily sign up to that, $10/month for a Valve developed Linux OS which provides the best possiblegamingdesktop experience for Linux? Hell yes, give me that.
FTFY
I would pay for that.
Last edited by whatever on 22 June 2019 at 1:18 pm UTC
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GustyGhost Jun 22, 2019
The problem is not 100% Canonical's decision. Consider also Valve's failure to build Steam for amd64, and the games industry (in general).
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Quoting: GustyGhostThe problem is not 100% Canonical's decision. Consider also Valve's failure to build Steam for amd64, and the games industry (in general).
To be fair most new games (at least in the AAA category) have 64bit or are 64bit only, in some cases out of necessity.
Last edited by bolokanar on 22 June 2019 at 1:23 pm UTC
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Valve is wrong about this.
It was high time for all software developers to stop supporting 32-bit. Valve should be able to fully switch to 64-bit faster.
This also applies to Wine. Stopping Wine64 support, and then crying and calling everyone bad - it`s brilliant.
The mess and stupidity of some developers amazes me every day. And Valve joined this as well. Valve still can not decide on the distribution. They were doing well with Debian / SteamOS, and then abandoned his support.
It was high time for all software developers to stop supporting 32-bit. Valve should be able to fully switch to 64-bit faster.
This also applies to Wine. Stopping Wine64 support, and then crying and calling everyone bad - it`s brilliant.
The mess and stupidity of some developers amazes me every day. And Valve joined this as well. Valve still can not decide on the distribution. They were doing well with Debian / SteamOS, and then abandoned his support.
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Quoting: gradyvuckovicValve didn't really have much of a choice. If there's a solution to this, Valve couldn't be expected to commit to figuring it out and fixing it just 3 months. Canonical pulled this out of no where with no warning and just expected everyone to deal with it.
They've been talking about this for about 2 years actually. Ubuntu 19.10 is just the testing ground for 20.04 LTS. It's possible that they'll not reverse this decision for 19.10, but might for 20.04, depending on how it goes with 19.10.
Quoting: mphuZValve is wrong about this.
It was high time for all software developers to stop supporting 32-bit. Valve should be able to fully switch to 64-bit faster.
This also applies to Wine. Stopping Wine64 support, and then crying and calling everyone bad - it`s brilliant.
This isn't about 32-bit vs 64-bit distros. It's about library support for the massive number of games that don't have 64-bit builds. And as far as Wine is concerned, the vast, vast majority of games installers are 32-bit only, so if you don't have architecture/library support for that, the game won't install.
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Quoting: mphuZValve is wrong about this.
It was high time for all software developers to stop supporting 32-bit. Valve should be able to fully switch to 64-bit faster.
This also applies to Wine. Stopping Wine64 support, and then crying and calling everyone bad - it`s brilliant.
The mess and stupidity of some developers amazes me every day. And Valve joined this as well. Valve still can not decide on the distribution. They were doing well with Debian / SteamOS, and then abandoned his support.
I bet you're one of those guys crying badly when one of their games don't run anymore as it doesn't come with a 64-bit build.
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Nevertheless Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: liamdaweInterestingly, Valve are now funding some work on KWin (part of KDE). - Added to the article.
I guess it would be quite easy to officially support the Flathub Steam flatpak, which already minimizes compatibility issues on lots of distros. Maybe Valve could even build a SteamOS flatpak themselves (I guess Snap is out of the contest by now ;-)), to support any distribution with recent enough kernel and drivers, without having to single out one specificially.
What you show us here speaks a different language however. To me this looks like they really seem to be concerned about the Linux desktop.
To fund KDE Plasma software, while using Gnome 3 for SteamOS at the same time is an interesting choice btw...
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Quoting: TheSHEEEP32bit has already been "killed". New applications/games are (almost) all 64bit.Quoting: LeopardI simply look beyond a few personal inconveniences at the bigger picture.Quoting: TheSHEEEPToo bad, really. I doubt Canonical will stick with their decision, since Valve not moving away from 32bit pretty much guarantees most gamers won't use newer Ubuntus any more.
Seems like we will have to drag along the 32bit legacy even longer. *sigh*
I don't understand that comment , really.
You're implying that is a bad decision but then also saying 32 bit legacy will stick on even longer.
When i look at your profile , it says you're dualbooting with Windows. So you also want MS to kill 32 bit support which will end miserably like Ubuntu's proposal, same games are also 32 bit on that side? Or just asking it on Linux side? Don't you have any 32 bit games?
Killing 32 bit compat is not something MS will do like Canonical does ; without a solution at all.
And the bigger picture is that progress requires sacrifice. Can't play some games/use some apps anymore? So be it, if that's the price to pay to finally get rid of old stuff like 32bit for good.
Of course, if I couldn't play pretty much any games any more due to Steam not working, well, that would be more than just an inconvenience, it would make linux as a whole not viable to me.
Therefore, Canonical deciding to move forward becomes rather pointless if other important developers don't follow. And Valve announced that they won't, as did some others, so there we go...
I think this would require a concentrated effort, and that's just not something the Linux space is easily capable of. The Sum Of All Egos....
This is about supporting old games and applications which won't be updated, and "some" means several thousand of them.
What personal inconvenience does the availability of 32bit libraries cause you?
If you want to make sacrifices you're free to just not install them.
I personally hope I will not survive the removal of 32bit compat.
That wouldn't just mean losing lots of games, it would also make some of my expensive hardware unusable (oscilloscope, logic analyzer, ...)
Last edited by poisond on 22 June 2019 at 2:06 pm UTC
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There will probably be PPAs that provide the libraries needed for Steam. Doesn't Steam already deliver most of the libraries along with the games?
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Quoting: riddleyAs a long-time Debian user, I have no dog in this fight, but man these comments are odd. First, Debian isn't difficult to install.
Being in the same boat, I wanted to compare Debian installation to Windows 10's lately. To my surprise, Debian has like 30 screens with questions during installation. It's too much.
Quoting: riddleyWhy is no one in these comments finding fault with Valve? Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad and grateful that they support Linux, but at the same time they don't do a very good job of it.
How is Valve guilty of many games using 32 bits? I don't know what they could do about it...
Quoting: riddleyPerhaps Steam is easy to install on Ubuntu, I'll never know. On Debain it's an exercise in frustration every time.
This I found not hard (for an average Debian user, that is):
https://ein-eike.de/2016/08/28/how-to-install-steam-and-nvidia-drivers-on-debian-jessie/
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Wow, I miss about 24 hours of news and look what happens...
Everyone has said a lot already, but thought I'd add a few quick thoughts:
Last edited by iiari on 22 June 2019 at 2:12 pm UTC
Everyone has said a lot already, but thought I'd add a few quick thoughts:
- On the upside (?), look at how influential Linux gaming has become that this would generate so much heat in the community in the first place. If gaming didn't matter, or no one cared, this would be a non-story in the Linux world...
- If Steam has to choose a new distro to focus on, I too think one of the big industry players (SUSE, Red Hat, etc) makes sense. As much as I love Manjaro, they probably aren't big enough for a company of Valve's size. Same with S76 I imagine...
- So, I go back and forth on Canonical all the time. They're like Mozilla in a way. At times they're terrific and you want to give them a big hug, and there are times when they make completely baffling decisions. Many of their high profile employees are big gamers. Why did they think this was a great idea?
Last edited by iiari on 22 June 2019 at 2:12 pm UTC
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Mohandevir Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: gojulLooks like Valve may not use a Debian-based distro : https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/155794864305471497/591834042437992448/Screenshot_20190622_053640.png
If true, this might explain why SteamOS Clockwork is not yet a thing; Valve was probably already exploring the possibility of dropping debian as a base.
It's not a great news for newcomers, but personnally I find it exciting... New stuff to come! It could be one step backwards for a new start for Linux gaming.
This said, Pop!OS is probably going to be my choice, since they plan to keep supporting 32bit libs.
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestHmm, Ubuntu HAS to backpedal, this would hurt the whole Linux ecosystem. For most people Linux = Ubuntu.
This is highly unlikely given that they really really dont care about their own product
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Quoting: vectorI say this tongue-in-cheek so don't flame me, but perhaps Ubuntu would like to deprecate support for OpenGL as well; after all, Apple is deprecating OpenGL support :P
At least Apple
1) CLEARLY communicated that 32-bit and OpenGL was deprecated YEARS in advance
2) Did not hem and haw about 'well maybe we'll get rid of it in 20.04'
3) CLEARLY made an OS update that bugged users about their apps potentially not working in future releases
4) Only after 2-3 years of such updates, notification, etc is 32-bit support finally ending with OSX Catalina
5) OpenGL was declared deprecated last year, it still is not offically dead even in Catalina. yes its likely soon, but Apple has been screaming about converting to Metal for years. to the point where Aspyr and Feral back ported their entire steam library to Metal last year
Canonical's plan
1) "You have 4 months sorry!"
If Canonical is going to copy all of Apple's bad decisions, then they should also copy the part where Apple spent YEARS clearly communicating to both devs and users, with popups and warning. As opposed to dropping a bomb on people with 4 months notice, and then when users upgrade to 19.10 in 4 months suddenly 50% of the Linux games will stop working and Proton/Wine also dies with it.
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Quoting: GustyGhostThe problem is not 100% Canonical's decision. Consider also Valve's failure to build Steam for amd64, and the games industry (in general).
You do realize how ignorant this is right?
1) Steam already has 64-bit installers for steam. the osx version of steam is already 64-bit.
2) Steam sells and distributes GAMES. Games that, well what do you know, may not have 64-bit executable. Because you know some games were made years ago? when it wasn't a big deal to make a 32bit exe
3) Steam also supports wine/proton to get more windows games into linux. wine needs 32-bit libraries because again, many windows games are 32-bit
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Quoting: SatoruQuoting: vectorI say this tongue-in-cheek so don't flame me, but perhaps Ubuntu would like to deprecate support for OpenGL as well; after all, Apple is deprecating OpenGL support :PCanonical's plan
1) "You have 4 months sorry!"
If Canonical is going to copy all of Apple's bad decisions, then they should also copy the part where Apple spent YEARS clearly communicating to both devs and users, with popups and warning. As opposed to dropping a bomb on people with 4 months notice, and then when users upgrade to 19.10 in 4 months suddenly 50% of the Linux games will stop working and Proton/Wine also dies with it.
For the third(?) time: Canonical have been talking about this for about 2 years. Can't say that I'm amazingly pleased about how it's been communicated, but at least lets get the facts straight, eh?
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