Ubuntu Linux Will Work To Slowly Demphasize 32-bit

[nanonyme]

So supporting MORE hardware somehow reduces the value of ubuntu?
And not an embedded distro: have you seen their *phone* plans?

There are still some Intel Atom devices around which are 32bit. Also lots of people still carry their old netbooks, and it's nice of Ubuntu to still support them. And while 32-bit x86 remains supported by debian most of the work will already be done already.

Well, if lack of manpower causes bad quality in all architectures, it does make sense to focus. Then again, there was a lot of talk about Canonical pushing for test automation. Maybe Canonical is running out of money that they have to do something like this?

[Ferdinand]

because I like that Firefox can't use more than 2GB.

Why doesn't windows warn about a program that is trying to use more than 2GB? I haven't had that experience with Firefox but Foobar2000 sometimes uses 4GB. If Foobar2000 uses more than 512MB it should restart itself.
My tip for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...adtab/?src=api Unload inactive tabs, save resources.

[grok]

On a system with 64bit CPU and 2GB RAM I'll tend to install a 32bit OS, because I like that Firefox can't use more than 2GB.
Besides, 10 to 15 year old PCs can still be useful and we need another OS than warez Windows 7 to run on it.

[Ferdinand]

Kill it already. 64bit has been around since the Athlon 64 / Pentium D days. So ~9-10 years.

ATOM1 netbooks are 32bit. I bought one in 2008. I still use it with Ubuntu on it. So not 10 years but at best 6 years. Fuck Intel for doing that. ATOM is 64bit but they fucked us with a 32bit chipset.

[techzilla]

ARCH

They should drop the i386 installation images, but they need to continue building i386 packages. As they are still used for multiarch support, and compatibility, like in the case of wine. the article should not have said 32-bit, and should have refereed to it by arch, to clarify this is only talking about i386 based systems.

[droidhacker]

I'm just going to leave this here;

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Demphasize?s=t

[riklaunim]

I used 64 bit ubuntu on 64 bit BayTrail with 32 bit UEFI and it works, but now it has to be done manualy to work. Custom install media would be required.

[Kano]

I see no huge impact in providing a kernel/ISO for 32 bit systems, you need to build 32 bit userspace for games and some old apps anyway. Some new ones are very weird however as some Atom systems are shipped with 32 bit UEFI/Windows due to 3d driver problems even if the CPU can use 64 bit. Even if new 64 bit kernels can be used with 32 bit UEFI this solution would be very specific. I don't know if there is a distro supporting this mix without hacks, btw. using a DVD you can only bless one file, or has somebody a better idea? USB keys could ship with 2 EFI binaries but the grub installer would need to check the uefi arch before install, would like to know how...

[yakman2020]

So supporting MORE hardware somehow reduces the value of ubuntu?
And not an embedded distro: have you seen their *phone* plans?

There are still some 32 bit Intel Atom devices around which are 32bit. Lots of people still carry their old netbooks, and it's nice of Ubuntu to still support them. And while 32-bit x86 remains supported by debian most of the work will already be done already.

Every arch they officially support reduces the resources (read, money) they have to do something else. There isn't much in the way of x86 arch hardware left anymore (I've go an old lenovo S10 that is 32 bit only, for example). It seems like its not worth the effort of continuing to support it.

This isn't to say that they should exclude it from the software base. Just not spend any time on it.

32 bit arm or mips is a different question, I should think.

[[Knuckles]]

Seriously guys, 32 but hardware was left in the dust ten years ago. Now software does lag but it has be TEN (10) years. Beyond that Ubuntu isn not a embedded distro, as such it needs to be focused on exploiting current hardware. Hell even Apple is pushing developer real hard towards 64 bit support on iOS.

So supporting MORE hardware somehow reduces the value of ubuntu?
And not an embedded distro: have you seen their *phone* plans?

There are still some Intel Atom devices around which are 32bit. Also lots of people still carry their old netbooks, and it's nice of Ubuntu to still support them. And while 32-bit x86 remains supported by debian most of the work will already be done already.