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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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Jmsnz Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: mphuZ
Quoting: ArtenMacOS as different case. When Apple remove 32bit support, there is no other way.
And? I still do not see the arguments why Valve should continue to support macOS. Not only because of the rejection of 32-bit support, but in general.

Steam is already 64bit on macOS, and has been since last year.

There is a bug where some people’s clients don’t update properly, but that’s a separate issue.

Steam itself is good to go.
whatever Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: doomiebabytell that to licensees of ARM, ROFL x3

ARM's ISA has very little to do with the efficency of their CPUs, it's mostly (all?) due to the microarchitecture designs.

The best ARM implementation is currently Apple's A12, and here's the reason why it's so efficient:
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9midcx/apple_really_undersold_the_a12_cpu_its_almost/
TL;DR: it's very wide with a very big cache, nothing to do with the ISA.

There's no need to change the x86 ISA and break the compatibility with every piece of software written in the last 40 years.

EDIT: fun fact, Intel will go wider with their next uarch Sunny Cove, we will see how that will go (probably very well) and how AMD's Zen3 will respond.


Last edited by whatever on 22 June 2019 at 11:48 pm UTC
doomiebaby Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: barotto
Quoting: doomiebabytell that to licensees of ARM, ROFL x3

ARM's ISA has very little to do with the efficency of their CPUs, it's mostly (all?) due to the microarchitecture designs.

The best ARM implementation is currently Apple's A12, and here's the reason why it's so efficient:
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9midcx/apple_really_undersold_the_a12_cpu_its_almost/
TL;DR: it's very wide with a very big cache, nothing to do with the ISA.

There's no need to change the x86 ISA and break the compatibility with every piece of software written in the last 40 years.

EDIT: fun fact, Intel will go wider with their next uarch Sunny Cove, we will see how that will go (probably very well) and how AMD's Zen3 will respond.

wasn't tl, but i won't take this too far off-topic
TheSyldat Jun 23, 2019
Quoting: liamdaweTo journalists from other websites reading: This does not mean the end of Linux support, Ubuntu is just one distribution.

Isn't it saaad that you FEEL you HAVE to precise that at the bottom of your article ?
Like for real this is the epidemy of "Hey you'll want to pull some shenanigans you can't use my ass for this shit fuck off find another pigeon for this"

Personnaly I hope they will go Pop!_OS even if they recently stated that they grow tired of the whole debian echo system and build system . Sorry not sorry but I never had great experiences with any non debian based distros on the desktop side of things .
So I really really hope they stick with a debian based system and Pop!_OS is the best solution really . Hell they are already better than Ubuntu on some various things .
Schattenspiegel Jun 23, 2019
Quoting: TheSyldatPop!_OS is the best solution really . Hell they are already better than Ubuntu on some various things .
Not sure -they probably are, but they are also a bit small, based on Ubuntu and unfortunately ship only the gnome desktop - so maybe something more...diverse ;-) concerning DEs and a little more upstream. I would love to see Mint but they have a similar situation. openSUSE may actually not be a bad idea.
Shmerl Jun 23, 2019
Expected outcome. GOG will probably follow with a similar announcement.
Shmerl Jun 23, 2019
And good to see Valve backing KWin work!
Shmerl Jun 23, 2019
Quoting: gojulSteamOS being Debian-based, recommending Debian or Mint/Debian would make a lot of sense. But it is true that Debian is not for beginners.

Valve can contribute some resources to make Debian more user friendly. KDE in Debian can surely benefit from more maintainers.
omicron-b Jun 23, 2019
Quotevorlon
June 23

I’m sorry that we’ve given anyone the impression that we are “dropping support for i386 applications”. That’s simply not the case. What we are dropping is updates to the i386 libraries, which will be frozen at the 18.04 LTS versions. But there is every intention to ensure that there is a clear story for how i386 applications (including games) can be run on versions of Ubuntu later than 19.10.
Shmerl Jun 23, 2019
Frozen 32-bit libs are not acceptable either. They should move forward, or there should be a solution to run 32-bit stuff on up to date 64-bit libraries base. Stale 32-bit libraries are very poor workaround for dropping 32-bit support.


Last edited by Shmerl on 23 June 2019 at 3:24 am UTC
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