Quoting: Patola

Quoting: 14I don't think Ubuntu has to maintain a legacy-compatible public image. They can move on.

Yeah, they will move on to oblivion. Without applications, and that include games, they are nothing. Imagine that, its "differential" from other distros being that it doesn't run whole categories of drivers, vsds, applications, games, utilities and libraries.

We have lot of choices, fortunately. In a way, I am kind of glad they tried that while still small. If they were the size of Apple, or worse yet, the size of Microsoft, they would be attempting things much, much worse, because they would think they have the leverage.

Do I seem bitter, or Ubuntu-hater? Well, maybe I am becoming one after using it for more than a decade and sometimes cheerfully defending Canonical. I am becoming one not because of others, but because of Canonical itself. I could see at the time of the accusation of "spyware" that it was a lie against them, I could understand at the time of Unity the way they kind of forced people to use it and agreed with that, I could accept they were trying to innovate with Mir (despite the lies some of their devs said about Wayland) and I really liked Upstart, I understood when they created snaps and even started studying snapcraft, I filed a lot of bugs at launchpad, I subscribed to their mailing lists, I even used Ubuntu Phone on my Nexus 4 for more than a year, but I realized now that they have really no interest in the desktop, no interest in their users and no interest in being a "good" linux distro, they just have starry eyes turned to the corporate world where they think that without mindshare they would take the place of Redhat. And by foregoing the desktop and gaming world by abandoning 32 bits (remember: they JUST POSTPONED IT!), they are losing all that remains of mindshare.

Let's all move on, then. Let's move on from Ubuntu to another distro. I am eagerly waiting for the Steam announcement for a supported distro. I have all my installations in LVM anyway, it's just a matter of replacing / and /usr logical volumes, and I can dual-boot for a while. I hope it's Pop!OS but I would stick with Solus, or Arch, or Fedora.

I think that what you have seen from the outside is Canonical going from having endless funds (from Shuttleworths selling of Twathe) to having those funds being dried up and having to earn actual income in order to stay alive.

I still believe that they have an interest in being a good linux distro, their users and the desktop. Just that they also try to cut everything unnecessary in order to keep the cost down as much as possible and this time they made the wrong decision that they thought that no one was using 32-bit software.

I myself stopped building 32-bit versions of our software back in 2016 when that first announcement came on ubuntu-dev and have not received a single request for it since then so I do think that it's an easy assumption to do unless you are deep into games and Wine.

About the "postponed" bit we don't really know about that either, earlier they where to abandon it altogether so in time they might come to the conclusion that they cannot postpone it either.

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Quoting: Gryxx

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Gryxx

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: eldaking

Quoting: F.UltraNo I didn't say that others did such stuff all the time. What I said was that in the real world companies announce their plans, then they await comments from users and partners to see how said plans will be received after which the plans are either amended or put into production.

The problem here is that the Linux fanbase decided to see the announcement of plans as a foregone conclusion and then run around screaming.

When they "announced" this years ago, did they set a date? Was it fully decided and plotted out? How much did they broadcast their intentions so that people could prepare their transition?

Or was their announcement now still just a "plan" to be discussed, despite the fact the changes takes effect in a few months?

Everyone was surprised by this because information was not communicated clearly enough and in advance enough. Yeah, we are probably overstating the impact... but this a panic Canonical created.

Here is the initial announcement from last year: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2018-May/040310.html so it was just one year ago and not years as I first claimed (shame on me there).

edit: further research shows that they also made an announcement back in 2016: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2016-June/039420.html

Basically, they said in 2016: "What do you think is appropriate?"
In 2018 as i understand they talk about dropping i386 images- not whole legacy 32 bit support, at least in your linked post
In 2019 we get: BANG!, you have 4 months to prepare your software/game/library for 64-bit only Ubuntu. You need 32 bit? Stay on older system until it runs out of support.
There was never a plan to migrate software. There was discussion about dropping, but until recently we had no timelines or guides how to prepare. That's not fair.

Here is a quote from the 2016 post:

Quote18.10+:
* Stop providing i386 port
* Run legacy i386 only application in snaps / containers / virtual machines

And that is exactly what they proposed to do in the now famous 19.10 announcement. And while I agree that 4 months is a very small time frame, it's quite obvious that they consider non LTS versions to be mere testbeds and that people would remain on 18.04 for quite some time:

QuoteQ. I have 32bit 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS installed, what are my upgrade options?

18.04 LTS has Standard Security support until 2023. Extended Security Maintenance runs for a further 5 years until 2028. You can stick with your current installed version until then and still be safe and secure.

This should give plenty of time to migrate away from 32-bit legacy applications before the next LTS which will be available in April 2020, or the following LTS in 2022. Alternatively place the legacy application inside an 18.04 LTS i386 container, on top of a newer 64-bit installation of Ubuntu.

I think a major problem here is that many people never read that far or just thought that, well let's worry about that in 2018 and then forgot about it. This whole rally that happened now should have happened back in 2016, perhaps then we could have avoided all the name calling.

QuoteOr some other variation of above things and/or adjusted timelines.
What do you think is appropriate? Can we survey and/or somehow
validate if above would be appropriate or needs to be extended or can
be shortened?

That's not announcment. That's question. And,, beeng quite rude- Why the fuck i need to stay with old distro, that does not support recent hardware? What can i do if i want to play Steam on my Ryzen 7 3500x an RX 5000?

It was a clear indication that they where thinking in those terms and incidentally that is exactly what they then announced would happen for 19.10, a problem here is that users, Valve and WINE didn't pick this up in 2016 while the Ubuntu devs apparently thought that they did so when no one complained they went ahead with the plans.

Ubuntu have what they call HWE which basically is when they will release a new kernel in order to support the newest hardware on older LTS systems. So your RX5000 will be supported on 18.04LTS.

Anyway we are all beating a very dead horse right now since Ubuntu have decided to continue with 32-bit support for selected packages. So if we continue this too long we will end up just like the People's Front of Judea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4

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Quoting: eldaking

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: eldaking

Quoting: F.UltraNo I didn't say that others did such stuff all the time. What I said was that in the real world companies announce their plans, then they await comments from users and partners to see how said plans will be received after which the plans are either amended or put into production.

The problem here is that the Linux fanbase decided to see the announcement of plans as a foregone conclusion and then run around screaming.

When they "announced" this years ago, did they set a date? Was it fully decided and plotted out? How much did they broadcast their intentions so that people could prepare their transition?

Or was their announcement now still just a "plan" to be discussed, despite the fact the changes takes effect in a few months?

Everyone was surprised by this because information was not communicated clearly enough and in advance enough. Yeah, we are probably overstating the impact... but this a panic Canonical created.

Here is the initial announcement from last year: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2018-May/040310.html so it was just one year ago and not years as I first claimed (shame on me there).

edit: further research shows that they also made an announcement back in 2016: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2016-June/039420.html

OK, so those are not official announcements, those are discussions. In their mailing list, so they didn't communicate this to the general public. In the 2018 e-mail, which is a proposal and not a final word, they mostly talk about dropping the image, about hardware support, and that the first step should be dropping the image (which I think everyone agrees). No timeline is given to drop multilib other than "we should eventually do it", no final decision is reached (on that one e-mail at least). On the 2016 e-mail, it is actually discussed dropping the libraries and surprisingly a tentative timeline is given. It is still only a suggestion, with plenty of questions asked, and the timeline was obviously discarded (it should drop compatibility on 18.10).

So no, not communicated clearly and in advance.

That mailinglist is how they communicate changes, and that is also where the recent post for 19.10 was picked up.

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Quoting: Gryxx

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: eldaking

Quoting: F.UltraNo I didn't say that others did such stuff all the time. What I said was that in the real world companies announce their plans, then they await comments from users and partners to see how said plans will be received after which the plans are either amended or put into production.

The problem here is that the Linux fanbase decided to see the announcement of plans as a foregone conclusion and then run around screaming.

When they "announced" this years ago, did they set a date? Was it fully decided and plotted out? How much did they broadcast their intentions so that people could prepare their transition?

Or was their announcement now still just a "plan" to be discussed, despite the fact the changes takes effect in a few months?

Everyone was surprised by this because information was not communicated clearly enough and in advance enough. Yeah, we are probably overstating the impact... but this a panic Canonical created.

Here is the initial announcement from last year: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2018-May/040310.html so it was just one year ago and not years as I first claimed (shame on me there).

edit: further research shows that they also made an announcement back in 2016: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2016-June/039420.html

Basically, they said in 2016: "What do you think is appropriate?"
In 2018 as i understand they talk about dropping i386 images- not whole legacy 32 bit support, at least in your linked post
In 2019 we get: BANG!, you have 4 months to prepare your software/game/library for 64-bit only Ubuntu. You need 32 bit? Stay on older system until it runs out of support.
There was never a plan to migrate software. There was discussion about dropping, but until recently we had no timelines or guides how to prepare. That's not fair.

Here is a quote from the 2016 post:

Quote18.10+:
* Stop providing i386 port
* Run legacy i386 only application in snaps / containers / virtual machines

And that is exactly what they proposed to do in the now famous 19.10 announcement. And while I agree that 4 months is a very small time frame, it's quite obvious that they consider non LTS versions to be mere testbeds and that people would remain on 18.04 for quite some time:

QuoteQ. I have 32bit 16.04 LTS / 18.04 LTS installed, what are my upgrade options?

18.04 LTS has Standard Security support until 2023. Extended Security Maintenance runs for a further 5 years until 2028. You can stick with your current installed version until then and still be safe and secure.

This should give plenty of time to migrate away from 32-bit legacy applications before the next LTS which will be available in April 2020, or the following LTS in 2022. Alternatively place the legacy application inside an 18.04 LTS i386 container, on top of a newer 64-bit installation of Ubuntu.

I think a major problem here is that many people never read that far or just thought that, well let's worry about that in 2018 and then forgot about it. This whole rally that happened now should have happened back in 2016, perhaps then we could have avoided all the name calling.

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Quoting: eldaking

Quoting: F.UltraNo I didn't say that others did such stuff all the time. What I said was that in the real world companies announce their plans, then they await comments from users and partners to see how said plans will be received after which the plans are either amended or put into production.

The problem here is that the Linux fanbase decided to see the announcement of plans as a foregone conclusion and then run around screaming.

When they "announced" this years ago, did they set a date? Was it fully decided and plotted out? How much did they broadcast their intentions so that people could prepare their transition?

Or was their announcement now still just a "plan" to be discussed, despite the fact the changes takes effect in a few months?

Everyone was surprised by this because information was not communicated clearly enough and in advance enough. Yeah, we are probably overstating the impact... but this a panic Canonical created.

Here is the initial announcement from last year: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2018-May/040310.html so it was just one year ago and not years as I first claimed (shame on me there).

edit: further research shows that they also made an announcement back in 2016: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2016-June/039420.html

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Quoting: EikeWell, actually "immature" and "world was ending" were part of your statement, too.

I take it that you don't frequent Phoronix and Slashdot much. If so then don't let the curiosity get the better of you, it's not pretty.

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: F.UltraCurrently Ubuntu have 6391 packages in Main, building that will take hours even for Canonical.

Makes me wonder how Debian is able to do such an enormous feat with its AFAIR ~70K packages...

Quoting: F.UltraWhat is next, UFO conspiracies, 9/11 Truthers, Freemasons, anti-vaxxers and anti-GMO fools?

Will you refrain from such talk in future?

I was mentioning the number of packages in Main, not the total number of packages in Ubuntu since Main is where Canonical provides support. If we count every single package including Updates and Backports then Ubuntu have over 70k packages as well.

Debian receives corporate sponsorships and are a community effort while Canonical as a company have to pay for their own servers, power and personel.

If people drop the conspiracy claims then I'm fully prepared to drop the conspiracy accusations. I have no intention to call people names unnecessary.

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: F.UltraThis is how things are done and decided in the real world all the time, the only difference now is that the immature Linux fanbase for some reason decided to run around in circles screaming that the world was ending.

You mean like Microsoft gave up 32 bit support? And enforced UWP only? Oops...

So tell me when Canonical gave up 32-bit support and enforced UWP only. Oh that it right this very thread exists only because Canonical decided to not give up 32-bit support.

What ever this now have to do with Microsoft?!

We are talking about Ubuntu reverting their decision to not properly supporting 32 bit software anymore. You've said others were doing such stuff all the time. That's where Microsoft comes to mind quite naturally. Giving up 32 bits and enforcing UWP are two examples of stuff they couldn't do due to software that must be supported.

No I didn't say that others did such stuff all the time. What I said was that in the real world companies announce their plans, then they await comments from users and partners to see how said plans will be received after which the plans are either amended or put into production.

The problem here is that the Linux fanbase decided to see the announcement of plans as a foregone conclusion and then run around screaming.

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Quoting: x_wing

Quoting: F.Ultra

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?

They get the base source code of each package from Debian, then they have to build the IA-32 version themselves, and provide support themselves. Considering the amount of packages in the repo it will take quite some time to build the packages for IA-32 and that is time taken from building for other archs and so on. If there where no cost for providing IA-32 builds then they clearly wouldn't have planned to throw them out to begin with.

The only real cost is QA. Building is normally cheap.

Currently Ubuntu have 6391 packages in Main, building that will take hours even for Canonical.

Seriously, do you people really think that Canonical decided to drop IA-32 for some other reason and then have their devs lie that it had to do with resources? What is next, UFO conspiracies, 9/11 Truthers, Freemasons, anti-vaxxers and anti-GMO fools?

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: F.UltraThis is how things are done and decided in the real world all the time, the only difference now is that the immature Linux fanbase for some reason decided to run around in circles screaming that the world was ending.

You mean like Microsoft gave up 32 bit support? And enforced UWP only? Oops...

So tell me when Canonical gave up 32-bit support and enforced UWP only. Oh that it right this very thread exists only because Canonical decided to not give up 32-bit support.

What ever this now have to do with Microsoft?!

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