32-bit ARM Is Also On The Chopping Block For Ubuntu

[phoronix]

Phoronix: 32-bit ARM Is Also On The Chopping Block For Ubuntu

Not only are developers talking about dropping Ubuntu 32-bit x86 support but the ARMHF support might also be cut as well for 32-bit ARM boards...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ARMHF-Ubuntu-Chopping-Block

[Chewi]

This seems very premature but I don't use Ubuntu so whatever.

[starshipeleven]

According to popcon, there are 2071481 i386 installations as compared to 685534 amd64 installations (https://popcon.ubuntu.com/).

popcon logs package usage, not system installations. Which means that all people using multiarch for say Steam, Wine or Skype or whatever other application that needs it will register for both 32 and 64bit in there.

Also that page is generated in 2016, 2 years ago.

Note that I'm not disputing the rest of your post, just pointing out that the source might not be as good as you think it is.

I personally think that the way forward for Steam and Wine is using Flatpack (or Snap if we go the Ubuntu NIH way), this would reduce the amount of breakage (as it won't use system libs).

[jpg44]

There are far more 32 bit x86 computers out there, making that probably the worst decision here. One of the major uses for the 32 bit release also is not for 32 bit x86 hardware, but to use inside a VM on a 64 Bit x86 CPU that does not support VT hardware assisted virtualization.You cannot run a 64 bit guest without VT technology on the CPU. But many Intel CPUs did not support VT leaving no way to run a 64 bit guest. This meant on many computers, you can only run a 32 bit guest, even though host system is 64 bits. Removing the 32 bit release will make it impossible to run Ubuntu has a guest on a large number of 64 Bit Intel CPUs!

[schmidtbag]

This is somewhat bad news, if they're killing off all 32-bit ARM (including armhf). There's still plenty of new-ish devices out there that use it. But, I could see how only supporting it in LTS releases would be a sensible priority.

[andre30correia]

There are far more 32 bit x86 computers out there, making that probably the worst decision here. One of the major uses for the 32 bit release also is not for 32 bit x86 hardware, but to use inside a VM on a 64 Bit x86 CPU that does not support VT hardware assisted virtualization.You cannot run a 64 bit guest without VT technology on the CPU. But many Intel CPUs did not support VT leaving no way to run a 64 bit guest. This meant on many computers, you can only run a 32 bit guest, even though host system is 64 bits. Removing the 32 bit release will make it impossible to run Ubuntu has a guest on a large number of 64 Bit Intel CPUs!

running a vm without VT-x is a nightmare, for some reason such cpu are not build anymore. I really doubt you can ever use ubuntu default desktop with such cpu

[starshipeleven]

There are far more 32 bit x86 computers out there, making that probably the worst decision here.

Source? Because I'm not seeing this in my IT job. 32-bit stuff is a minority and is on its way out everywhere.

Removing the 32 bit release will make it impossible to run Ubuntu has a guest on a large number of 64 Bit Intel CPUs!

And such CPUs are? Because last I checked we are talking of first/second gen of Core2Duo where not all CPUs supported that, later CPUs all have VT-x.

I'm leaving most Atoms out of the discussion because they either run like shit even with a single OS or they are mounted in devices that are not meant to be using VMs like tablets so they lack storage, running VMs on them is retarded.

[Vistaus]

According to popcon, there are 2071481 i386 installations as compared to 685534 amd64 installations (https://popcon.ubuntu.com/).

Thus, abandoning the i386 port would be a pretty dumb decision.

Also, I don't see any valid point in such a decision. 95% of the porting work for Ubuntu is done in Debian. Canonical just needs to maintain their buildds and fix a package here and there.

Thus, the small amount of effort saved does - in no way - justify the large loss of users and backward compatibility with 32-bit applications like WINE.

This whole "Let's abandon 32-bit ports" is pure activism by folk who apparently have too much free time.

Uninformed user is uninformed.

First of all: 32-bit applications and libraries will continue to be supported on the 64-bit version.
Second of all: this topic is about dropping 32-bit ARM support. I'm pretty sure that's a different architecture than i386, but even if they count it as i386: how many of your 2071481 installations are 32-bit ARM?

[lucrus]

I'm happy they drop 32bit. Ubuntu was never meant for slow computers, there's a plethora of other distros for that.

[caligula]

Well I'm pretty sure a Ubuntu user would find it very challenging to even flash gpio leds with a SBC slower than a 64bit quad-core. They'd need to be able to run WebKit and communicate with node etc.