Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS Dropping 32-Bit/i386 Support

[slacka]

Owners of the billions of Pentium 4 and Atom servers sunning in the world !

My company uses Ubuntu Server not because we have to, but because we have hundreds of VM instances. Switching from x86 to x86-64 will bump our memory requirements up by 20-40%. This forced hardware upgrade would cost us thousands, with no appreciable benefit. We'll switch to Debian or some other distro before that.

[FireBurn]

If you're virtualizing properly I very much doubt it - quick explanation here: http://searchservervirtualization.te...t-page-sharing

[roothorick]

Technology marches on! It's probably been a good five years since I ran a 32bit OS on anything.

As long as I have grub-pc-bin with the 32bit binaries/scripts (or better yet, the winusb script gets updated with UEFI support) I'm good.

[My8th]

inb4 "THE END IS NIGH!!!" type of posts.

But it's a good game.

[Otus]

My company uses Ubuntu Server not because we have to, but because we have hundreds of VM instances. Switching from x86 to x86-64 will bump our memory requirements up by 20-40%. This forced hardware upgrade would cost us thousands, with no appreciable benefit. We'll switch to Debian or some other distro before that.

Unless your software stack uses almost no memory, you can maintain memory use by running a 32-bit version of it even on 64-bit Linux.

Anyway, there is no forced upgrade. 32-bit installs will continue to work and can even be upgraded. If you need to install 18.04 32-bit from scratch you just need to use an alternative install medium.

[GreenReaper]

Unless your software stack uses almost no memory, you can maintain memory use by running a 32-bit version of it even on 64-bit Linux.

Not quite. There's a significant difference in kernel memory usage, too - try 'cat /proc/slabinfo | grep ext4' for an example. On Debian it's the difference between fitting three or (optimized 64-bit kernel) four inodes into a 4KB kernel slab vs. five, six, or seven. And that translates into significant memory savings for large-scale filesharing operations, which can be used for more [slab_]cache, lowering I/O.

Obviously YMMV, but there are reasons people keep 32-bit x86 around, and not just backwards-compatibility. Though it's disappointing that x32 hasn't taken off more; for many applications it's the best of both worlds. As you say, it should be possible to just install an unofficial/older version and upgrade.

[sa666666]

Though it's disappointing that x32 hasn't taken off more; for many applications it's the best of both worlds.

That option is the worst of both worlds. Software must be written specifically to take advantage of it, and it means keeping 32-bit around even longer. We should be transitioning away from obsolete technology, not finding new (broken) ways to keep using it. That's why its uptake hasn't been larger.

It's the same as IPv4 vs. IPv6. People keep finding new, broken ways to keep v4 around, and it's slowing the uptake of the real upgrade path (v6). Sometimes the time comes to just let things die ...

[Vistaus]

386 support was dropped in 2013 if my memory serves me well. Minimum CPU would be a 486. Xubuntu 14.04 was sluggish on my 32 bits netbook. Debian strech works but slowly. Crunchbang was perfect but was discontinued. Lubuntu was buggy. I like this old netbook.

I will have to find small sized distros with a modern enough version of octave.

Try Q4OS. It's super duper fast on old hardware (and they have a new shiny theme now, although it's not default yet, but you can set it manually). Puppy Linux is also an option. Or, if you want to give something other than Linux a try, then Haiku is super-duper light but still able to run some modern apps (not sure what octave is though).

[mzs.112000]

Remember, if you still require a 32bit distro, you can always compile everything yourself, AFAIK there is a way you can have Ubuntu entirely recompile itself on your computer by looking at every package that exists on your computer, downloading it and its dependencies from the repos and compiling. You could probably do that, but set tbe your APT repo list to point to the new versions repository, then it will essentially compile the new Ubuntu release specifically optimized for your computer.
I have never tried this, just heard somewhere that it can be done, YMMV.

EDIT: You could also try RecycleBin-OS, it works on any computer, but is especially suited to ancient ones.

[Dedale]

I just tried Q4Os on a VM, it sounds promising. Little memory requirements. And a god enough version of octave. I had forgot Trinity as a DE. I loved KDE 3 ! Thanks to all who did offer suggestions.