Ubuntu 19.10 To Drop 32-bit x86 Packages

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 19.10 To Drop 32-bit x86 Packages

Ubuntu and their downstream flavors all stopped shipping x86 32-bit images and now for the 19.10 cycle they have decided to stop their i386 support entirely. Beginning with Ubuntu 19.10, the archive/packages will not be built for x86 32-bit...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Drops-32-bit-x86

[ThoreauHD]

I think it's time. Netbooks/shitboxes are cancer anyway.

[Azrael5]

I approve.

[FireBurn]

Hopefully if Steam are on the ball they'll provide a 64bit client, and just enough libraries (and probably drivers too) to keep 32bit games working

[Guest]

Hopefully if Steam are on the ball they'll provide a 64bit client, and just enough libraries (and probably drivers too) to keep 32bit games working

Considering the amount of 32bit proprietary software out there and Wine, I don't think any sane distro will get rid of multilib any time soon. Even printers need multilib to work properly.

[xpris]

Half or even more steam games need 32bit libs but steam-runtime can save it. Most on GOG need it too. Steam itself is 32bit for now. I hope they release soon 64-bit Steam.
Dont know what with some old games or wine32 games?

[M@GOid]

And yet Steam is 64bit on Mac. They should had put the feet down and demanded 64bit on Linux too since the start.

[Xaero_Vincent]

This is concerning considering the number of games on Steam and GOG that are 32-bit only. I don't use Ubuntu but I don't want to see a trend of multi lib getting cut off that breaks so many games. That said, I use Archlinux but still.

[edwaleni]

Now begins the 100+ post topic.

[ferry]

Stupid decision. There are relatively recent Intel processors (in particular Silvermont cores) that run certain code faster on 32b. An example can be found here https://github.com/htot/crc32c. The reason is that certain long instructions incur a penalty and these instructions are typically 64b, so less of them can be executed per cycle. Silvermont is the core in f.i. Intel Edison and Baytrail (NUC).

It's not even that code is no longer written to support 32b, arm still needs it. So we would not be abandoning 32b support in general, just on x86.

It's seems to be a very modern thing, to brag about how fast your own desktop is and how you don't need support for 'old' stuff and how it's about time that is killed off. People seem to forget Linux runs everywhere and is portable to almost anything. Typically the biggest competitor (windows) struggles to do the same.

Even Ubuntu states (https://ubuntu.com/core):
Choice of ARM or x86
Ubuntu runs the same. Your apps build the same. We support both 32-bit and 64-bit apps on both architectures. If it doesn’t compile and run the same, we’ll fix it. Open up your supply chain.