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It seems Canonical have done a bit of a U-turn on dropping 32bit support for Ubuntu, as many expected they would do. Their official statement is now out for those interested.

The most important part to be aware of is their new plan:

Thanks to the huge amount of feedback this weekend from gamers, Ubuntu Studio, and the WINE community, we will change our plan and build selected 32-bit i386 packages for Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04 LTS.

We will put in place a community process to determine which 32-bit packages are needed to support legacy software, and can add to that list post-release if we miss something that is needed.

That's not the end of it though of course, eventually 32bit will be dropped which is inevitable really. Just not fully this time. Touching on this, they said in the post about using "container technology" to address "the ultimate end of life of 32-bit libraries" so hopefully by that time everything they need will be in place to make it super easy for users.

I'm glad Canonical have seen some sense on this, they clearly didn't communicate it well enough to begin with but they at least understand when they've made a big mistake like this and owning up to failures is part of what builds trust, so I'm happier now. Next time this happens, I just hope they give a very clear roadmap giving everyone proper time to prepare, which they didn't this time.

Their full statement is here. It will be interesting to see how Valve react, after announcing an end of Ubuntu support for Steam for Ubuntu 19.10 onwards.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Distro News, Misc
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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Expalphalog Jun 24, 2019
I have been following this story without understanding anything that is going on. I'm a part of the new breed of Linux user who has come in only now that distros are becoming incredibly easy to use. Do I need to start looking at switching away from Mint?
danniello Jun 24, 2019
Good that Canonical changed their bad decision, but anyway - it means that "Linux desktop" situation is much worse than I thought:(

Sad, very sad situation. It is well known that Canonical is not serious company, but such absurd situation also harmed Valve reputation (at least from Linux enthusiasts perspective).

It is oblivious that Canonical took this decision without consultation with Valve. It means - there is no agreement between Canonical-Valve. No agreement at all!!! Valve set Ubuntu as "recommended distribution" for game developers and Linux users WITHOUT any serious agreement with Canonical to protect their investment!


Last edited by danniello on 24 June 2019 at 5:39 pm UTC
Eike Jun 24, 2019
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Surprise, surprise! ;-)

It's all fine that they want to reach another solution some day. Just not this day.

BTW, what would have been the problem with Ubuntu Studio?
TobiSGD Jun 24, 2019
Quoting: GuestI can see why they want to remove 32 bit libs because it's a ton of work.
But a ton of work for whom? They still get the majority of their packages directly from Debian, throwing a patch on one or the other package and just compile. If Debian still supports newer versions of 32 bit libraries, how much work is there really to be done for canonical?
Eike Jun 24, 2019
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@Liam I wonder if the last days brought you an all-time high in traffic. :-D
x_wing Jun 24, 2019
I think that we all should keep away any bias or hate that may have with Canonical when giving an opinion.

They definitely had a stupid idea, but they're finally backtracking. Ubuntu is still by far the most popular Linux distro and the base of many distros created for common users that just want to "replace their Windows", so desire their destruction won't help at all to the Linux community.

Keep calm and keep gaming, folks.
kaiman Jun 24, 2019
Glad I did not spend the weekend installing another distro and did something productive ... uh, I mean, played some games, instead :-).

In the long run, I guess a way has to be found to keep old 32bit software running, be it through emulation, VMs, containers or what have you. The way the software world evolves, I fear it will likely be in a browser :-(.
TobiSGD Jun 24, 2019
Quoting: EikeBTW, what would have been the problem with Ubuntu Studio?
Many VST-plugins for use with DAWs are only usable running on Wine.
Eike Jun 24, 2019
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Quoting: TobiSGDMany VST-plugins for use with DAWs are only usable running on Wine.

Oops! I thought from the name it would be an IDE (like Visual Studio). Thanks!
Liam Dawe Jun 24, 2019
Quoting: Eike@Liam I wonder if the last days brought you an all-time high in traffic. :-D
Yup, highest in a month. 50K unique hits that day.
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