Canonical Formulates The 32-Bit Support Strategy For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Canonical's Ubuntu engineers in cooperation with community members have figured out their 32-bit support adjustments for the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS release.

After dropping their original proposal of clearing out 32-bit packages entirely, Ubuntu 19.10 shipped with a trimmed down set of 32-bit packages (32-bit x86) available to x86_64 users. Those 32-bit packages on Ubuntu 19.10 were based on popularity with what 32-bit packages might still be in prevalent use today on modern Intel/AMD systems. For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, some minor adjustments are being made.

The post lists some of the additions and removals planned for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Like libssl1.0, wine-stable-i386, gcc-8-base, and other packages are being dropped due to being obsolete or other factors. Meanwhile, additional packages have been added for 32-bit targeting including Freeglut, libv4l, VDPAU drivers, VA-API drivers, and various other libraries.

Longtime Ubuntu developer Steve Langasek outlined that around 1,700 source packages will trigger builds on i386 in Launchpad for Ubuntu Focal (20.04). Coming soon will be some other building/infrastructure changes as well as improvements to their automatic package testing infrastructure.

Long story short, the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 32-bit package support will be largely similar to how it is in Ubuntu 19.10 with Steam and other prominent packages not yet living in a pure x86_64 world will still be accessible.