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

[starshipeleven]

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.

That's why Raspbian is based on Debian, and not Ubuntu, among other things.

[stormcrow]

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.

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.

And other arguments about ia32 ... totally irrelevant to the article people. Did you read the article before posting? This is about 32 bit ARM support such as the original Raspberry Pi & Beagle Boards, NOT about ia32 (legacy x86) support.

I'm really not sure how many ARMHF Ubuntu users are out there, but if the metrics for the popularity contests (225 submissions?) are correct, and they don't have enough people to support that port, then by all means, drop support. I'd say the same about any other low hanging fruit. I'm also saying this as a Raspberry PI B+ user, though in my case I use Raspbian. Competition is a good thing, but when you just don't have the users or resources to justify the effort, move on.

[leiptrstormr]

Ubuntu should drop support for everything but Windows 10 on x86_64 machines. Supporting only the most popular hardware configurations is what made Linux great.

[jacob]

Ubuntu should drop support for everything but Windows 10 on x86_64 machines. Supporting only the most popular hardware configurations is what made Linux great.

Er. Actually the ARM architecture is where Linux rules supreme. With my excuses to Apple fanboys, it's fair to say that without Linux support, ARM wouldn't nearly be what it is. Yes, Linux was initially conceived as a desktop PC operating system and unfortunately that's the last area that it still has to crack. Bur for pretty much everything else it has long become the go-to OS and dropping it would be the stupidest idea ever.

[Sniperfox47]

This is about 32 bit ARM support such as the original Raspberry Pi & Beagle Boards

Just want to point out that unless something has changed drastically in the past few months, even the Raspberry Pi 3 runs with a 32 bit kernel (on 64 bit hardware), since the GPU firmware requires a 32 bit kernel.

There are a few distros that use driver interface hacks on top of a 64 bit kernel (I believe Fedora does this) to get it to work but it's hacky and causes some driver bugs.

[discordian]

Fine, more people will then use debian, where the development is done anyway.

[DrYak]

Just want to point out that unless something has changed drastically in the past few months, even the Raspberry Pi 3 runs with a 32 bit kernel (on 64 bit hardware), since the GPU firmware requires a 32 bit kernel.

Actually the firmware DOES NOT run on the ARM CPU. It runs on a different RISC that is embed inside the GPU and communicate with the linux kernel running on the ARM through "mailboxes".
Currently (Raspbian Stretch) you can run upstream vanilla kernel (4.14.39 currently) with no necessary blobs, all the blobs remaining inside ThreadX rtos running on the GPU's risc.

(Raspberry Pi, compared to all the other SBC out-there is a really weird architecture.
It's actuall a network of 2 different systems running on 2 different CPUs.
It probably made sens back a the beginning, in an era of awefully closed source firmware on most embed chips : ThreadX takes care of the most thing using blobs running on the GPU, leaving possible to eventually have a possible upstream vanilla kernel on the ARM CPU.
Nowadays, there has been massive effort at opening the firmwares (see the sunxi effrots with Allwinner, see efforts around Rockchip), and it's possible to find lots of SBCs that can run up-to-date upstream kernel, as long as you neglect the current ARM GPU mess)

Raspbian remains 32bits by choice to make a single unified distro that runs from the ARMv6 HF found nowadays in Pi Zero, all the way to the ARMv8 in Pi 3+ /Pi 3/Pi 2 v1.2
(And also they think there isn't much need for a 64bits OS - though opinion on this varry.
Yes, 64bit memory address space is a bit overkill on an embed SoC that cannot physically address more than 1GB (30 pin physical address bus, internally 2bits on the 32bits RAM address space reserved).
But on the other hand the ARMv8 ISA provides more registers, newer opcodes, and can process the large numbers used by cryptography by splitting then into wider 64bit chunks - NOTE: Raspberry Pi's arm happens not to implement lots of the optional crypto hardware, you still need to do a lot of your encryption on the CPU).

There are other distros out there that maintain an ARMv8 kernel (bootcode.bin actually supports looking for one),
there are even a few distros running a ARMv8 userland (mostly lifted from debian aarch64),
specifically for the small speed gain I mentioned above that an ARMv8 isa can bring over the original ARMv6 HF isa.

[caligula]

Ubuntu should drop support for everything but Windows 10 on x86_64 machines. Supporting only the most popular hardware configurations is what made Linux great.

Nice trolling, pal. How about no.

[caligula]

I'm really not sure how many ARMHF Ubuntu users are out there, but if the metrics for the popularity contests (225 submissions?) are correct, and they don't have enough people to support that port, then by all means, drop support.

For what's its worth, x86-64 computers appeared in 2003. That is 15 years ago. Something like 99% of x86 computers have been x86-64 over the last 10 years. Why 32-bit support needs to be hammered is because it's less safe (e.g. ASLR), supports less memory (PAE is a hack), distros don't even turn on SSE2 optimizations. These things matter in workstations, servers etc.

In the ARM land, 137 out of 164 SBCs are 32-bit ARM. Raspberry Pi 2 which appeared 3 years ago is 32-bit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...oard_computers

Some 32 bit ARM platforms got preliminary kernel support for the first time in 2018. For most ARM boards, 64-bit provides very tiny advantages. They have less than 4 gigs of memory, anyways. Faster crypto and ALU processing is all there is. IMO it's a bit preliminary to drop support already now. OTOH only noobs use Ubuntu anyways and they will need the fastest and best hardware to flash the GPIO leds. So it's clear that while all other distros need to support 32-bit ARM, Ubuntu has no such hardcore users.

[fuzz]

I still use ARMv6 on the rapsberry pi zero w all the time, but I don't run ubuntu on it so whatever *shrug*