Ubuntu 19.10 To Drop 32-bit x86 Packages

Ubuntu and their downstream flavors all stopped shipping x86 32-bit images and now for the 19.10 cycle they have decided to stop their i386 support entirely. Beginning with Ubuntu 19.10, the archive/packages will not be built for x86 32-bit.

Longtime Ubuntu developer Steve Langasek announced their decision today that the i386 architecture will be dropped starting with Ubuntu 19.10, affecting all Ubuntu-based platforms / those relying upon the official Ubuntu Eoan archives.

The decision to drop it now for Ubuntu 19.10 was made since they don't want to support i386 for another LTS cycle and thus for sufficient testing/notice they are doing it ahead of the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS cycle.

Users still needing Ubuntu x86 32-bit packages can stick to using Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or otherwise setup a chroot on top of Ubuntu 19.10+ that is based on the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS package set. This may cause some snags for the likes of Steam, but we'll see the path they take now moving forward.

More details on Ubuntu 19.10 dropping i386 can be found via this mailing list post.