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Update: Canonical are now saying 32bit libraries will be "frozen" and not entirely dropped.

Original article:

Things are starting to get messy, after Canonical announced the end of 32bit support from Ubuntu 19.10 onwards, Valve have now responded.

Speaking on Twitter, Valve dev Pierre-Loup Griffais said:

Ubuntu 19.10 and future releases will not be officially supported by Steam or recommended to our users. We will evaluate ways to minimize breakage for existing users, but will also switch our focus to a different distribution, currently TBD.

I'm starting to think we might see a sharp U-turn from Canonical, as this is something that would hit them quite hard. Either way, the damage has been done.

I can't say I am surprised by Valve's response here. Canonical pretty clearly didn't think it through enough on how it would affect the desktop. It certainly seems like Canonical also didn't speak to enough developers first.

Perhaps this will give Valve a renewed focus on SteamOS? Interestingly, Valve are now funding some work on KWin (part of KDE).

Looks like I shall be distro hopping very soon…

To journalists from other websites reading: This does not mean the end of Linux support, Ubuntu is just one distribution.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Steam, Valve
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doomiebaby Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: EzyRhinoI'm beginning to think that the decision Canonical made is exactly what they want. This is all speculation on my part, but I think they want to focus 100% on the enterprise (AWS, Azure, etc...) and get out of the end-user desktop market. Sad if true.

yeah, that thought had crossed my mind as well
elmapul Jun 22, 2019
i hate to be the one with the conspirations theories, but, microsoft make an partnership with canonical, then canonical shoot then selves in the foot like this for desktop users...
Mohandevir Jun 22, 2019
Might be too optimistic from my part, but seriously, I'm just eager to see the outcome of all this. Who knows, we might be surprised by what could be brought to the table by the "new players" that will be willing to fill the void left by Ubuntu's departure.

Canonical should remove all desktop references from their wiki. It's clearly not a target anymore. Of all the x86 platforms, desktop is the slowest to change and they have take that into account, unfortunately.
doomiebaby Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: BlackBloodRumThe good news is, Linux is not-alike Windows, in that we're not all tied to one specific distro.

Non-Linux users will often comment "Linux is too fragmented" with too many distributions to become mainstream. That, Linux having so many distros is a bad thing.

Well, to be honest. Steam and Canonical have just highlighted one of the reasons that we do have so many distros. It gives us the ability to quickly move on to a new distro when we're not happy with what's going on with our current.

Though, to be fair, I do not use uBuntu (never did). So I'm not overly bothered by their decision. But I can certainly understand how it will affect many people.

Go Fedora, Go Arch, Go Debian, Go Slackware, go wherever you feel comfortable next. Linux is great like that, you're never tied down.

A moment I am proud to have supported only Linux since 2003. As this demonstrates our ability to keep moving. A happy Fedora, Arch, CentOS user* here. :).

* I usually pick my distro based on the usage needed for a particular system.

and why i and people with my mindset are wary of any systems or structures that don't respect free will, honesty and real trustless choice/accountability; such systems are tyrannical in nature. this is indeed one of the biggest reasons i run linux; i can put my money and time with whomever i want, and don't get dragged into suffering by some 51% ...nuff said =P''


Last edited by doomiebaby on 22 June 2019 at 7:55 pm UTC
eddie-foss Jun 22, 2019
I'm with Ubuntu at this time, even not using any *buntu or based since 2008, to isolate desktop and avoid user-space breakage we need a better solution like Dosbox did for 16bit programs, we need a real 32bit emulator and not the mess that turned nowadays as Wine evolves but 32bit libs frozen, no improvement, patches or fixes, more sooner than later 32bit libs will be incompatible with new toolkits and DE devs will just throw the towels. Since I came to Japan I stopped being a programmer afaik I guess that virtual machines in containers could be a better solution imho.
wvstolzing Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: einherjarShould they work for me for free? Why?

Miss the point much? I'm not talking about getting stuff for free; it's the oddity of the fact that the subscription model comes to mind as the first example for 'supported software', and for an operating system no less.

In the enterprise, companies pay fees for a wide range of rights, including calling the developers themselves to fix & recompile a bit of software when something goes wrong. However in the consumer space, the 'subscription model' merely deigns to allow basic usage -- I consider things like security updates within the scope of 'basic usage' -- only as long as the payments keep coming in. Unlike the enterprise support model, it's an arbitrary constraint on your rights over the hardware you own.

Consumers 'renting' software appears to be becoming 'normal'; that's what's unsettling.

-- also, although beside the point, I've also made small contributions to open source projects that I depend on; and I'm hoping to do more once I straighten out my financial situation. (Including supporting this website obviously.)
RCL Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: BeamboomMaybe it's too soon. Maybe it should have been handled differently. But the notion that the entire backlog of the history of gaming should be forever kept able to run across all future generations of operating systems... It's just dumb.

If you want to run old software, keep an old OS on your drive. Just like if you want to play your cassettes, keep a cassette player.

Not just old OS, you need to use an old hardware as well. Forward compatibility of the drivers in your OS only goes so far.
thelimeydragon Jun 22, 2019
I just don't understand what is difficult (relatively) about having a 32-bit-multilib package as an option to install.

Slackware you have a 32-bit version or a 64-bit version.
The 64-bit version is pure 64-bit. If you want to get 32-bit support you have to install these packages: http://www.slackware.com/~alien/multilib/. This also gives you the ability to compile/install other 32-bit stuff if you so need to. Apart from that it just stays quietly in the background.

There are 10,000+ old Windows games that need 32-bit support to run.
amk Jun 22, 2019
Too many comments, sorry, I didn't read them all.
Well, I'm neither a Steam user, nor a *buntu one, so I basically don't care much. But yeah, Valve being unable to deliver 64bit Steam is part of it too, although many of the games are 32bit only, yes. But that doesn't mean Valve should be encouraging the use of 32bit anachronism.

I read in one of the comments that most people consider Linux to be Ubuntu. People meaning non-linux users? Because most of Linux users are not gamers at all and really not *buntu users either. Really.

I'm no fan of Debian either for that matter, for various reasons, including package management and actually the way multilib works in Debian based distros. Frankly, it's sort of nightmare.
And Canoncial = Shuttleworth. A guy who's words are lacking truth much more often then I'm personally comfortable with.
So, maybe time for celebration after all? No thing or occurrence is by definition negative, only someone's specific opinion makes it so you know ;)

So, yeah, nice times, keep it up Mark, all is on a good way! :D
dibz Jun 22, 2019
To be honest I'm not sure why people are terribly surprised that Canonical made that call, and really, I expect they'll stick to it. They have a history of making calls and more or less telling people/communities/"linux people" to deal with it and/or "F*** off" (paraphrasing on my part).

I stopped using Ubuntu years ago over Canonical's jerk-wad behavior; the fact that I had problems with their quality control was only icing on that cake (LTS tended to be too old/too problematic, current always managing to break just enough that I had to fix my desktop every four months). I love Mint as being the "good" derivative that I rarely have to fix during normal usage/updates (My preference is Mint XFCE), and it pays to remember they have a Debian/Rolling non-ubuntu based version. I'd be all over their "LMDE" if it became their flagship, I've not adopted it yet simply because I've always suspected it'll get dropped once it becomes too much of a technical debt.
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