Ubuntu 19.10 To Drop 32-bit x86 Packages

[gQuigs]

Modern games are mostly 64-bit.. Valve even recommends it https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/s...tion/platforms

Nvidia ended support for 32-bit - https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answ...ail/a_id/4604/
I'm not sure AMD's new model ever tried for 32-bit: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/re...orad-lin-18-20

Regardless what we did for Ubuntu, we'd be running into these issues. IMHO Valve should have only supported 64-bit when they launched for Ubuntu in 2012. That would have been a much better long-term play.

[birdie]

I just can't believe what amount of morons, false experts, idiots and other ignorant people exists, and especially on this forum.
Almost all posts in this thread are copletely wrong.

It's not that 32-bit apps will stop working on Ubuntu. The post is about Ubuntu dropping support for (very) old processors like some Pentium 4's, Pentium 3, Pentium 2, Pentium Pro, Pentium, Athlon, K7 etc, which are missing 64-bit mode entirelly.

Why don't you all start your posts with "we are computer amateurs", so that I know who I'm speaking to.

debianxfce is a freaking super-expert compared to you all.

This might have something to do with:

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.

Don't know what else to say. We're discussing what Michael unequivocally said.

The original email says almost the same:

The Ubuntu engineering team has reviewed the facts before us and concluded that we should not continue to carry i386 forward as an architecture. Consequently, i386 will not be included as an architecture for the 19.10 release, and we will shortly begin the process of disabling it for the eoan series across Ubuntu infrastructure.

While this means we will not provide 32-bit builds of new upstream versions of libraries, there are a number of ways that 32-bit applications can
continue to be made available to users of later Ubuntu releases, as detailed in [4]. We will be working to polish the 32-bit support story over the
course of the 19.10 development cycle.

And

• Users who need support for i386 integrated natively into their OS can use Ubuntu 18.04 with security support until April 2023.
• 18.04 can be run in a chroot or container on top of later Ubuntu releases until 2023 with security support from Canonical, or beyond that without.
• 32-bit software distributed as snaps built with an 18.04-derived library runtime can reasonably[1] be expected to work on later releases of Ubuntu for the foreseeable future
• Once we're past the point where security support is available for the libraries anyway, maybe there's no advantage anymore to having your 32-bit compat libraries managed via the packaging system either; so maybe you just make /lib/i386-linux-gnu a straight unpacked tarball of the libs you need, and no longer have to worry about the version-lockstep constraints of multiarch.

And I'm not sure where you're getting your deliriums from.

Also, please install a spellchecker.

Let's not forget that maintaining an architecture like the 32bit has a cost, in terms of time and money, moreover it is always more difficult for the distributions to do testing on this architecture due to the limited use, Ubuntu has estimated that only 1% of its users uses this architecture. No one is forbidden to create repositories with 32-bit packages, but they will also have to compile the kernel and everything else, on the other hand one cannot expect the distributions to assume this burden.

Maintaining exactly what? There's no i386 installer, there are only 32bit libraries which barely require any maintenance. As long as they build and work everything might be left as it is now.
Actually I don't care about Ubuntu one bit. I use Fedora and they have a tad more rational maintainers in regard to 32bit support.

[shmerl]

https://github.com/AndreRH/hangover

No, sorry. Not interested in CPU taxing qemu emulation, when CPU supports x86_32 natively. Unless overhead is very negligible.

[birdie]

If they are dropping 32-bit packages, that probably means they are dropping 32-bit versions of apps (or at least, for those apps which have 64-bit support, which means almost all apps). I doubt that Ubuntu will drop 32-bit libraries (which would prevent 32-bit apps from running). That would be ridiculous, and therefore, it is impossible. Nooone (at Ubuntu) is that stopid.

Perhaps Michael should have said "dropping 32-bit versions of *MOST* apps".

They are dropping everything. Go read the original discussion in the mailing list. From now on installing 32bit applications in Ubuntu will be a major PITA. They say go install apps in a chroot or bundle them as flatpaks worth gigabytes.

[birdie]

Modern games are mostly 64-bit.. Valve even recommends it https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/s...tion/platforms

Nvidia ended support for 32-bit - https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answ...ail/a_id/4604/
I'm not sure AMD's new model ever tried for 32-bit: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/re...orad-lin-18-20

Regardless what we did for Ubuntu, we'd be running into these issues. IMHO Valve should have only supported 64-bit when they launched for Ubuntu in 2012. That would have been a much better long-term play.

Where are you getting your shat from? 99% of games are 32bit only. Even if modern games are mostly 64bit, and that's debatable, we have literally tens of thousands of games which will never be ported to 64bit. We have thousands of 32bit software titles as well and they provide life critical support.

NVIDIA (that's how they are spelled) has not ended support for 32bit - they ended support for 32bit kernel drivers. They are still supplying 32bit libraries and will keep on doing that for the foreseeable future.

[Xaero_Vincent]

Well one thing is for sure... people who want 32-bit app support like gamers will surely be DROPPING support for Ubuntu.

[ritalat]

Great, I guess it's finally time to find some other distro. I hope Debian will at least keep 32-bit versions of most common libraries going forward.
Is there a Debian repo for more up to date nvidia drivers or do I have to install them manually? Fedora or Arch are starting to sound attractive.

I'm afraid that this will cause GOG to put even less effort to Linux support in the future.

[calc]

This is going to be a mess.

Brother, which has full Linux support for their printers, only has 32bit lpr/cups drivers even for their newest printers.

[skeevy420]

If they are dropping 32-bit packages, that probably means they are dropping 32-bit versions of apps (or at least, for those apps which have 64-bit support, which means almost all apps). I doubt that Ubuntu will drop 32-bit libraries (which would prevent 32-bit apps from running). That would be ridiculous, and therefore, it is impossible. Nooone (at Ubuntu) is that stopid.

Perhaps Michael should have said "dropping 32-bit versions of *MOST* apps".

They're dropping all 32-bit support and are expecting users to run 18.04 in a chroot or container for 32-bit software and in another three and a half years their solution for their users is currently "¯\_(ツ)_/¯, we suppose you could (use Gentoo and) compile a 32-bit environment your-damn-selves". Apparently multiple people at Ubuntu are that stupid. And that Gentoo comment isn't a joke....wtf do they expect people to use to do the following:

- Once we're past the point where security support is available for the
libraries anyway, maybe there's no advantage anymore to having your 32-bit compat libraries managed via the packaging system either; so maybe you just make /lib/i386-linux-gnu a straight unpacked tarball of the libs you need, and no longer have to worry about the version-lockstep constraints of multiarch.

Also, it appears that those fucktarded assclowns forgot about compiler updates, PIE, PIC, compiler based mitigations...yeah, the library itself might not be updated but that doesn't mean that other parts of the process haven't been hardened making a recompile necessary or just a good idea...

[Templar82]

I'm glad "someone" is doing this, its a good step towards the future.
That said, I likely won't be using it as it doesn't suit my work case.