Wine Developers Appear Quite Apprehensive About Ubuntu's Plans To Drop 32-Bit Support

[the_scx]

I don't see why Ubuntu couldn't just release 32-bit versions of all of Wine's dependencies while dropping the rest of the architecture. Maybe have them packaged under the amd64 repo, but just prefixed with "x86" or whatever. Seems like a pretty easy solution to me...

Have you ever tried to built everything up from glibc? Of course you don't. Otherwise you wouldn't suggest such silly things.

[the_scx]

Name 1 other open-source project in Ubuntu's repos that depends on 32-bit libraries. I'm well aware there are plenty of closed-source ones, but, many of them provide their own libraries. Case in point: Steam.

For example, PCSX2 - a Playstation 2 emulator.

https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/pcsx2

I'm well aware there are plenty of closed-source ones, but, many of them provide their own libraries. Case in point: Steam.

Steam Runtime doesn't provide all of the necessary libraries. It lacks glibc as well as userspace GPU drivers (OpenGL, Vulkan, etc.).
I have already explained it here:

https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/1107050-ubuntu-19-10-to-drop-32-bit-x86-packages?p=1107452#post1107452

Worst-case scenario, I'm sure some closed-source 32-bit programs could just use Flatpak.

Some can and some can not. Flatpak is not suitable for all possible scenarios. The same applies to Snap.
For games from GOG and Humble Bundle, this situation will be a nightmare:

https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/486#issuecomment-405826821

To expand on what TingPing said, Steam at least provides some common runtime that publishers/developers can base on, and even if that in mind, it doesn't really work. Just go through issues reported on Flathub's Steam repository – many games are broken because of dependence on external libraries or applications that are not correctly shipped. GameHub doesn't provide even that and it's impractical to add every missing dependency to Flatpak application itself.

GOG clearly states on their website that only Ubuntu is supported and even the release differs between particular games. Humble Bundle is even more trigger happy and I had even less luck with few games I bought there. Not to mention that some are 32-bit only, making it even harder to make everything work. All this results in bad user experience, especially for players with no technical Linux background and I can't see Gamehub being any different.

(On a side note, we are also considering removing Steam.)

[the_scx]

Multilib exists and GCC is able to cross compile to 32 bits. I don't see the problem.

The problem is that they want to drop it. They literally want to remove multiarch support from Ubuntu 19.10+.

[the_scx]

Just drop it. As long as old technology is still supported, people will keep clinging on to it. At some point, you have to just say "No, we are moving forward."

We should forget about all movies that were not create in native 4K. Just burn them because they are not worth to exist!

Apple is pretty good about this. If not for them, half the web would probably still be running Flash.

Apple is so good in this that gaming on Macs is an extremely rare activity. It could be different, but gamers usually want to keep their library for years, and with Apple they are constantly losing titles from theirs collections.
That's why people prefer PCs and consoles.

[the_scx]

Next questions: My printer and my scanners all use 32-bit plugins. Will they now get worthless?

Only if you are going to use Ubuntu 19.10+.

[the_scx]

The decision to drop 32bit is understandable. What's not understandable and not acceptable is giving the world 4 months notice only. Such a change should be announced at least a year in advance.

No, it is not understandable. There is absolutely no reason to drop multilib support in this or the next decade. Microsoft will support it at least until 2029 (it is guaranteed by Windows 10 October 2018 Update from LTSC channel) and probably much later. Why Linux can't? It should if it cares about desktop users. This is de facto required when it comes to the user-friendly experience.

[the_scx]

The software is shooting itself in the foot. It's like people complaining about Flash. You've had such a ridiculous amount of time to move content over but sat on your butt. The only one to blame is the authors of the software / content.

Why Ridley Scott didn't make a remake of the "Alien" series using a new technology? He had so much time for it! This movie should be burned and forgotten! Maybe this will teach movie makers a lesson that they should make remake every 5 years!

[the_scx]

This is already a solved problem that has a standard solution. 32-bit libs go to /usr/lib, and 64-bit to /usr/lib64, but it may vary depending on distro because different paths can be configured for ld.so. Gentoo has recently migrated /usr/lib32 to /usr/lib to resolve some compatibility issues.

You already have multiarch in Ubuntu but they want to drop it. Without it, you have nothing. Not even an i686 version of glibc. That is the problem.

[the_scx]

Anyone who needs backwards compatibility is probably not running bleeding edge Ubuntu releases. 18.04 will be supported until 2023 at which point if you are still running x32 for some bizarre reason Debian will probably still be there to pivot to.

It is not just about backward compatibility. WINE and related software are modern. People don't want to use an ancient version of WINE. They want to use a modern WINE with DXVK, probably using PlayOnLinux/Phoenicis or Lutris to manage wine versions and wine prefixes. And if you stay with the current distribution for years, you will suffer from unresolvable dependency problems, sooner or later. Just like it is already hard to prepare packages for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or CentOS 6, there will be a very similar problem with PlayOnLinux/Phoenicis and Lutris on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS in 2023. As long as Microsoft has a majority market share in desktop operating systems, no one should even consider dropping multilib support in desktop Linux distributions.

[the_scx]

I'm curious to see how no 32-bit support plays out. I personally don't believe I use anything that requires 32-bit libraries (I use Wine, but use 64-bit prefixes and I believe the launchers and games I play also are both native 64-bit executables), but outside of that, I'm pretty confident I'd be ok.

Again, pure 64-bit WINE is almost completely useless.

https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/software/distributions/1023893-ubuntu-developers-once-again-debate-dropping-i386-images-then-discontinuing-i386-port?p=1024120#post1024120

When Windows began targeting 64-bit architectures, Microsoft decided to include a compatibility layer to support their massive universe of 32-bit applications. This kind of subcomponent, nicknamed WoW64 (for Windows on Windows 64-bit), is also implemented in Wine to solve the exact same problem.
64-bit Wine built without 32-bit support will not be able to run ANY 32-bit applications, which most Windows binaries are. Even many 64-bit programs still include 32-bit components!