32-bit UEFI Support Proposed For Ubuntu Linux

[axfelix]

I'm really happy to see this, as I love the idea of the Dell Venue Pro 11 with the detachable hinge keyboard running Gnome 3. The Bay Trail configuration currently only has 2GB of memory, though (which might be the reason that vendors aren't pushing x86_64 too hard), so I was planning on waiting until next year's low-end model anyhow. Hoping I'll be able to jury-rig Manjaro on one of those by late 2014 -- whether next year's uses 64-bit UEFI or 32-bit UEFI support matures.

[Kano]

Basically i would never buy a system which requires 32 bit uefi as the 32 bit is only needed to get those stupid 3d chips running which have got no 3d support for linux at all.

[Sonadow]

i think the problem lies with MS as much as Intel, as the super-low-power states for receiving updates while asleep do not work in 64bit Win8, as we expect them to in our smartphones, so intel had little incentive to prioritise 64bit eufi support for bay trail devices.

There's also the issue of many existing Bay Trail devices shipping with no more than 2GB of memory. Which, for the most part, is actually enough to run Windows 8 comfortably without performance issues.

Since the real goal of 64bit operating systems is to eliminate the 4GB hard limit of 32bit operating systems, devices shipping with < 4GB of memory are nice fits for 32bit platforms and operating systems. Plus there are lots of software out there which are still 32bit only.

Basically i would never buy a system which requires 32 bit uefi as the 32 bit is only needed to get those stupid 3d chips running which have got no 3d support for linux at all.

Neither will I; it's silly to have 64bit hardware held back by 32bit firmware. But I'd buy honest-to-goodness 32bit hardware with 32bit firmware if it fits my needs.

[Luke]

Netbooks actually benefit from 32 bit in many cases-but recent issue have been NUTS

There's also the issue of many existing Bay Trail devices shipping with no more than 2GB of memory. Which, for the most part, is actually enough to run Windows 8 comfortably without performance issues.

Since the real goal of 64bit operating systems is to eliminate the 4GB hard limit of 32bit operating systems, devices shipping with < 4GB of memory are nice fits for 32bit platforms and operating systems. Plus there are lots of software out there which are still 32bit only.



Neither will I; it's silly to have 64bit hardware held back by 32bit firmware. But I'd buy honest-to-goodness 32bit hardware with 32bit firmware if it fits my needs.

For a netbook with 1GB of RAM, the ram usage savings of 32 bit can be significant. The only reason I run 64 bit in mine is so I can use the same OS snapshot images and packages as on my
big machines, nothing else. Of course, with operating systems in general migrating to 64 bit, this can be an issue, one big enough in the long run to force up the amount of RAM provided in mobile devices and thus possibly their cost.

When the first Intel Atom netbooks appeared in 2008, they could not boot Ubuntu Hardy due to a SATA driver issue. By the time Ubuntu 8.10 (intrepid) was out this had been fixed with later kernels, and as a result, you could buy any Atom netbook and run nearly any then-current distro on it for the next two generations. There would be wifi driver issues, battery monitor messes and webcam issues on some, but the core machines would boot and run. The other issues usually could be fixed with special drivers or BIOS updates. If not,USB wireless devices were cheap, and a machine with battery monitor issues stilll has a clock.

Then came the Poulsbo graphics mess, but at least you could boot and run X nonaccelerated. Screen resolution issues were reported until 2d drivers caught up, thanks to Intel's now over romance with PowerVR graphics. That is now gone, only to bring up a worse problem: having to run tricky bootloaders if you want to load a 64 bit OS over 32 bit boot firmware, and possibly lose some functions as a result. I am used to having issues with things like battery indicators in netbooks, but if default live installers won't boot, that is a SERIOUS impediment to new users who bought these things blind ever trying Linux again.

Just because I can force Linux to boot and boot to what I want on some random piece of hardware married to MS Windoze does not mean the rest of my family can do the same. Therefore, people who have these 64 bit CPU over 32 bit firmware machines and manage to make them work should be listened to, and their fixes moved upstream if possible. Their motivation to develop the patches is simple: they already own the hardware, and not having to throw it out is equivalent to a grant of between $200 and $300 per person to work on it.

[AdamW]

I bought a Dell 11" tablet with an i5 Haswell for this very reason ...

Well it turns out there's no support for the Dell 1537/1358 WiFi card from Atheros/Broadcom and the drivers for the HD4200 still don't work in Ubuntu 14.04 without using "nomodeset".

So it seems there's still a lot to improve on to gain decent support since the Bay-trail Atom is based on the same GPU (to my knowledge).

I'd still have expected Intel to ship 64-bit enabled Atoms these days, since its been de-facto for years now.

yeah, basically this. in currently working on getting fedora running on one of these. hacking up a 32 bit uefi image is trivial, it's all the breakage in the kernel that's the problem. virtually nothing on any of the current bay trail devices really works; it seems a bit premature to worry about shipping installer images at this point.

Intel seems to be noticing a bit that support for these systems is badly broken so we may be getting some fixes from them soon, but it's still a bit early to tell if it's going to be worth it for distros to try and support these things.