Fedora To Stop Providing i686 Kernels, Might Also Drop 32-Bit Modular/Everything Repos

[Guest]

You are being stupid. Getting a printer with 64 bit driver support is not exact hard.

https://wiki.debian.org/DriverlessPrinting

All the printers with IPP Everywhere and Apple Airprint on the box work with Linux without requiring to install third party drivers so are 64 bit supported. Yes this is USB and network connection.



There are many Brother printers that support Airprint if it supports Airprint you don't need to install Brothers binary driver.

Horrible fact here brother printers that truly need the binary driver in 3 to 4 years you will not be able to get the consumables so they are on the way out.

Also a brother printer that support Airprint will display more features using the generic airprint driver than using the brother binary driver.

Reality check here is printers drivers requiring 32 bit libraries to print are for legacy printers.

If you were talking about scanning on MFC printers that is a different set of problems and mostly that is 64 bit as well..

If you are using a machine decanted for printing having to jump though some extra steps to make 32 bit still work on that is not a major problem. Printing to cups server on a decanted machine for a brother printer that has 32 bit library requirement does not require machines sending print jobs to that decanted server to have 32 bit support.

So if you are buying a printer today there is no reason to put your money down on a printer that does not support a 64 bit driver on Linux. You either have like the HP what provide a feature rich full direct driver and IPP Everywhere or you have items like the Brother were they provide Airprint support that turns out to be better than if you waste the time installing the binary printer driver.

Saying need 32 bit to print when you really look at is not that solid of a argument. The 32 bit libraries required for printer drivers are not enough to start graphical applications. This is what kind of annoying with brother print drivers they updated the GUI parts but have not update one program in processing to 64 bit. Maybe distributions starting to drop multilib will give them the need push to update their printer drivers or maybe they will just end of line all those printers that need that driver first.

The general point was that there's some proprietary software that's 32-bit only.

[oiaohm]

The general point was that there's some proprietary software that's 32-bit only.

Problem is most of the 32 bit proprietary software has a 64bit version or is rendered pointless by the open source competitor software that exists.

Only major exception I know of it steam(game stores) and wine stuff. Wine with hangover work it may not require multi lib in future instead be able to operate on a 64 bit host library system this will take work to come into existance.

Does any of that 32 bit only that is not basically pointless really require multi lib or would it be fine in a 32 bit container with a 32 bit run-time.

Some software of a particular type existing does not mean its any major quantity or of decent quality.

Major point here is most of that 32 bit proprietary software is getting really old and unmaintained and worse totally superseded by newer better software,

Unmaintained programs you most likely don't really want running multi-lib because requires you to remain version synced with the current versions of libraries because those will not be the libraries those old programs require to work.

Unmaintained programs are better in Snap or flatpak or some other container solution. Yes Valve is doing their own runtime they could container.

Sorry your general point is mostly full of holes as a reason to keep multi lib going. We have cgroups and namespaces based techs like flatpak, snap and docker these are more suitable solution for legacy programs than multi lib due to being able to provide the libraries the legacy programs want.

[pal666]

Michael, please add to the article a quite important note that this change doesn't affect multilib, i.e. it doesn't prevent Steam/Wine/etc to be used in Fedora 31 and above. Thanks.

well, it clearly states "fedora" instead of "ubuntu", so why would anyone expect insanity?

[pal666]

why the hell are 99% of games still being made in 32bit?

they are not made in 32bit, they are made in x86. because they are binary only and it is easier to ship only one binary for one arch. probably they think that they still have some possible users on x86. and amd64 is not the real victim here(it easily runs x86 binaries after all), real victim is riscv

[pal666]

This is case you really do need to stop buying printer to use with Linux that don't provide full 64 bit drivers.

i have to disagree. you shouldn't care what binary drivers they provide. they must provide source code which should be bundled with your distro out of the box in compiled form

[tildearrow]

Can’t see quote button on mobile.

Try tapping in the empty gap between the right margin and the Like button. For some reason it's an invisible button.

[oiaohm]

I think the bigger question is when is steam going to start shipping 64bit clients and why the hell are 99% of games still being made in 32bit?

This is wrong. Most games today that are in production are in fact made 64 bit x86 only. The back catalogue with games is huge. People don't only buy and new games most game sales are the older games.

[oiaohm]

they are not made in 32bit, they are made in x86. because they are binary only and it is easier to ship only one binary for one arch. probably they think that they still have some possible users on x86. and amd64 is not the real victim here(it easily runs x86 binaries after all), real victim is riscv

This is a horrible no the 32 bit point is wrong. Your new windows games if you check them they are 99 percent 64bit x86. But you have a huge back catalogue and people buy those games and those games the source code is well and truly lost so people are buying programs with a known security issue of being unmaintained.

i have to disagree. you shouldn't care what binary drivers they provide. they must provide source code which should be bundled with your distro out of the box in compiled form

Printer maker provided drivers should be 64 bit x86 at least. I would prefer open source drivers over a binary blob. 32 x86 on Linux uses memory operations on calls where 64 bit x86 linux uses registers more. This usage of registers in calls make it higher performance to qemu-usermode on riscv and arm.

Yes providing 32 bit x86 drivers hurts you on arm and riscv if you have to emulate them heck it hurt a little more emulating on x86. Bar min bar need to be 64 bit x86 for items like printers with preference to open source shipped with distribution.

Really I do like ipp everywhere. or airprint where they use agree on standard so avoiding needing to have as many drivers. I would love to see MFC printer makers have a proper agreed on standard for scanning.

I have a min bar they should meed. My prefer bar is that items like printers and scanners should not require a per device driver and should be just a generic standard interface.

[zxy_thf]

I think the bigger question is when is steam going to start shipping 64bit clients and why the hell are 99% of games still being made in 32bit?

I'm more optimistic.
Steam is shipping 64bit clients, but not using it for some unknown reason.
At the same time I see more and more new games are released with 64bit versions. Some indies are even not supporting 32-bit.

However I also don't think Steam will drop 32bit support anytime soon since we have tons of GOGs there.

[aht0]

It's fine for present day and future games but screws you over when you have legacy games as well and these happen to be closed source games.