When should i386 support for Ubuntu end? Help Canonical decide

Quoting: Mountain ManWhat would prevent you from simply using another distro? Canonical is only making a decision for Ubuntu, not for all of Linux.

Sorry, I guess I forgot to use the [sarcasm] tags. :)

Quoting: leillo1975I think that Ubuntu 32bits has no sense. Other thing is the light flavours of Ubuntu like Lubuntu and Xubuntu. I manage a lot of old machines (Pentium 4 with 1GB RAM) that with xUbuntu 32bits can do something useful in my job.

This exactly. The only desktops I needed 32bit linux on had such old CPUs that they were missing instruction sets needed to run newest chromium and flash, sigh. You don't run hogunity on such systems. Lubuntu on the other hand runs just fine.

I have a legacy x86 tower that I keep around as novelty but it runs Debian so I don't think I can participate in this survey. It would be sad to see 32 bit support drop but ultimately wouldn't affect anything important to me.

In my opinion 32 bit support should have died back in 2005. We have had 64 bit CPUs and operating systems for ages but they haven't killed off support yet. Think of the progress that could have been made elsewhere if resources and money weren't allocated to 32 bit support ?

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: hardpenguinIf they drop 32 bit repos, it will be a disaster. The gaming industry still ships 32 bit-only applications. Wine is 32 bit only for 32 bit Windows software (because it's not an emulator).

If you want to run games on Linux, you cannot drop 32 bit software.

And no, it is not possible to ship the 64 bit version in every possible case.

Not to mention, that Windows and macOS are going to support 32 bit applications for years to come!

I think you're misunderstanding what is actually being discussed. Go to the survey page itself, and you'll find this disclaimer: "Running i386 (multiarch) software on amd64 will continue to work and is not part of the current survey."

So they're not contemplating dropping support for 32-bit software, only support for 32-bit operating systems.

Alright! I couldn't find this information in a hurry. Thanks a lot!

Actually they are contemplating the removal of multilib, and supporting 32bit only through Snap/Flatpak/Virtual Machines.

Quoting: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2016-June/016661.html18.10+:
* Stop providing i386 port
* Run legacy i386 only application in snaps / containers / virtual machines

Quoting: boltronics

Quoting: Seegras

Quoting: boltronicsRemind me again why we still have i386? Oh yeah, because of the original EeePC ...

... which I use about once every week ;). But I'm running Debian on it. In fact, I run Debian everywhere except on my cellphone.

I've upgraded through three other laptops since then. And yes I do still use the EeePC - as a Shairport server (running Debian). But that's not the sort of thing I'd use Ubuntu for. I doubt the 800x480 screen is even compatible with a lot of modern software. Any kind of production server that's i386-only is surely out of warranty by now.

Incidentally, I ran a Debian derivative on my phone for years - the N900. Sadly it broke a few times, and it got too slow to load any kind of complex web-page so it had to go. But installing Python apps via apt-get on a phone with a hardware keyboard was so good.

I love(d?) my N900, and wish that I could put Maemo on my Note 4. I've been really tempted to pick up the Neo900, but unfortunately by the time it's actually released, the hardware will be 4 years old...

More on topic, I'd be okay with Canonical dropping 64bit install disks as well. Since that'd leave us with no Ubunut, and I'd be okay with that.

Seriously, how much work does it actually take to create a i386 installer? They mostly just repackage Debian's stuff and modify it with Unity as the desktop with their very basic installer anyhow, which I believe is written in a non-architecture dependent language. I started following Ubuntu since it was first announced and tried the betas. But they've steered so far off course of their original intent (make a Debian based distribution with the latest Gnome, and a 6 month release schedule to follow that). Now they've really gone off the deep end with snap and Unity is terrible. In fact that's probably why the survey... they figure Unity will soon take more than 4GB of ram to run...

Quoting: soulsourceActually they are contemplating the removal of multilib, and supporting 32bit only through Snap/Flatpak/Virtual Machines.

Quoting: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2016-June/016661.html18.10+:
* Stop providing i386 port
* Run legacy i386 only application in snaps / containers / virtual machines

So terrible... just... no....

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: soulsourceActually they are contemplating the removal of multilib, and supporting 32bit only through Snap/Flatpak/Virtual Machines.

Quoting: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2016-June/016661.html18.10+:
* Stop providing i386 port
* Run legacy i386 only application in snaps / containers / virtual machines

So terrible... just... no....

Errr, isn't Steam only 32bit?

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: soulsourceActually they are contemplating the removal of multilib, and supporting 32bit only through Snap/Flatpak/Virtual Machines.

Quoting: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2016-June/016661.html18.10+:
* Stop providing i386 port
* Run legacy i386 only application in snaps / containers / virtual machines

So terrible... just... no....

Errr, isn't Steam only 32bit?

Yup, sure is.

[code]
dpkg -l|grep steam
ii steam:i386 1.0.0.52-1 i386 Valve's Steam digital software delivery system
ii steam-devices 1.0.0.51-1 all Device support for Steam-related hardware
ii steamcmd:i386 0~20130205-1 i386 Command-line interface for Valve's Steam
[code]