As you might have heard by now, Canonical has made the decision to drop 32bit support from Ubuntu 19.10 onwards.
Writing on the mailing list, as well as this post on Ubuntu's Community Hub, Canonical gave a reminder that the decision isn't coming without warning. It was proposed last year and it was followed up with another post detailing a final decision to be made in the middle of 2019. So here we are, the decision seems to have been made.
The problem isn't hardware, as likely around 99% of people nowadays have a 64bit capable computer. Going by our own statistics, from what 2,254 users told us only 4 are using a 32bit Linux distribution. The issue then, is mainly software and libraries needed to actually run 32bit applications. This is where it sounds like there's going to be plenty of teething issues, with a number of people not too happy about the decision.
Steam, for example, is one such application along with plenty of 32bit games that will likely never get updated, although Canonical did say they're "in discussions" with Valve about it. There's also GOG, Humble Store and itch.io which all provide a number of direct-download 32bit games, which do not supply the required 32bit libraries to run. It doesn't sound like they have been given any thought (at least they haven't been mentioned).
Another of the major problems being Wine, with a discussion now happening on their mailing list. The discussion doesn't seem to be too positive, with developer Henri Verbeet even saying "I think not building packages for Ubuntu 19.10 would be the only practical option.", although Andrew Eikum's idea of using the Steam Runtime could be an interesting way around it.
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
This is a terrible move in general, and not for games specifically. As outdated as it is, 32-bit is still used by current software; so they aren't just breaking backwards compatibility, they are making the distro incompatible with lots of software. Maybe people shouldn't be making 32-bit software now... but Ubuntu is just one distro of a minority desktop OS; do they seriously think they are in a position to make demands? "Everyone needs to change because it is too much work for us to keep supporting those libs".
And their "solutions" are laughable, especially considering that Ubuntu is supposedly focused on user friendliness. Linux for human beings, the newbie distro, it just works... except a lot of things don't work at all anymore. And what their suggest? GPU pass through.
As for games, developers generally targeted Ubuntu specifically. What happens when Ubuntu of all things stops working? How the heck can we ask for developers to support Linux when the "biggest" and "default" distro suddenly breaks all games? Valve were at the point where they ambitiously wanted every game on Steam to work on Linux; now games with official Linux support, as well as default Wine, will stop working on Ubuntu. I'm not sure they could cause more damage if they tried. The only saving grace is that, as FOSS, no single company can control Linux entirely.
I'm still hoping that they revert this change on 20.04. Maybe this was just a test run, or a gimmick to make people panic and start publishing 64 bit. But well, my next distro certainly won't be Ubuntu-based.
And their "solutions" are laughable, especially considering that Ubuntu is supposedly focused on user friendliness. Linux for human beings, the newbie distro, it just works... except a lot of things don't work at all anymore. And what their suggest? GPU pass through.
As for games, developers generally targeted Ubuntu specifically. What happens when Ubuntu of all things stops working? How the heck can we ask for developers to support Linux when the "biggest" and "default" distro suddenly breaks all games? Valve were at the point where they ambitiously wanted every game on Steam to work on Linux; now games with official Linux support, as well as default Wine, will stop working on Ubuntu. I'm not sure they could cause more damage if they tried. The only saving grace is that, as FOSS, no single company can control Linux entirely.
I'm still hoping that they revert this change on 20.04. Maybe this was just a test run, or a gimmick to make people panic and start publishing 64 bit. But well, my next distro certainly won't be Ubuntu-based.
11 Likes, Who?
Didn't Valve select Debian for SteamOS? So Valve would simply swap Ubuntu with Debian as most recommended target. Quite natural to expect that.
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: slaapliedjeI'm a huge supporter of Debian as a desktop / server, whatever.Sounds like a good system if you're still in the reformat-every-year-or-two mindset. That was really an XP era thing that I find pretty annoying these days. I don't like major upgrades, thus the move to a rolling release years ago. Theoretically never have to reinstall? "Sign me up," is what I thought.
It really goes like this, use stable with backports (namely kernel / nvidia driver, if you have such hardware, etc.) with the debian-multimedia repo, and you're pretty much set. Then you can wait about a year into stable, then switch to testing, since their release cycles seem to be about every 2 years. Just note that testing gets a bit unstable right after a release, and switch to stable at that point so the couple months of all the new crap coming from experimental and unstable don't break your system.
Coming from someone who has used it since the late 90s :)
Not saying you're doing it wrong, -- it's your system -- just commenting my preference.
5 Likes, Who?
I'm not happy with Ubuntu's decision to do this, although it doesn't especially affect me anyway (as I use Debian mainly). With any luck community backlash will cause Ubuntu's management to change their minds and reverse the decision. Like they did with the Upstart technology a number of years ago.
--
Addressing 14's comment (just prior to this) about using a (Debian) system: Debian is designed in such a way that you can have very 'stable' reliable software, which is carefully maintained, but the repositories aren't as cutting edge. Then there is the 'testing' distribution which is still very reliable and it has repositories with more recent software, and you can *easily* distro upgrade between the 'stable' release and the next one up the tree 'testing'. Then the next is 'unstable' and the top one is 'experimental'.
For the purposes of sticking with the one system, you can do that with Debian, and you can distro-upgrade whenever you're ready to do so. When you distro-upgrade it generally goes without any hitches, i.e. you shouldn't run into problems and need to rebuild your system.
On top of all that, more advanced users can "mess around" by using backports or even installing software from more unstable versions. I actually run Debian 10 Buster (currently 'testing' but due to become the 'stable' version in a few weeks time) with the latest experimental Nvidia drivers (by messing around with the apt package management config).
If I want to upgrade the Debian 10 Buster to the next 'testing' release, I just need to run distro-upgrade commands and it'll all happen without fuss. Chances are, I won't bother upgrading to the newer software in 'testing' for a number of months, and when I do I won't take any chances and will backup my partition before running the upgrade.
--
Finishing off with this: If Ubuntu does push through this change, I think it is going to generally be bad for the whole Linux ecosystem i.e. It will not encourage new users to move to Linux, and it might cause existing users to move away.
Last edited by g000h on 21 June 2019 at 5:45 am UTC
--
Addressing 14's comment (just prior to this) about using a (Debian) system: Debian is designed in such a way that you can have very 'stable' reliable software, which is carefully maintained, but the repositories aren't as cutting edge. Then there is the 'testing' distribution which is still very reliable and it has repositories with more recent software, and you can *easily* distro upgrade between the 'stable' release and the next one up the tree 'testing'. Then the next is 'unstable' and the top one is 'experimental'.
For the purposes of sticking with the one system, you can do that with Debian, and you can distro-upgrade whenever you're ready to do so. When you distro-upgrade it generally goes without any hitches, i.e. you shouldn't run into problems and need to rebuild your system.
On top of all that, more advanced users can "mess around" by using backports or even installing software from more unstable versions. I actually run Debian 10 Buster (currently 'testing' but due to become the 'stable' version in a few weeks time) with the latest experimental Nvidia drivers (by messing around with the apt package management config).
If I want to upgrade the Debian 10 Buster to the next 'testing' release, I just need to run distro-upgrade commands and it'll all happen without fuss. Chances are, I won't bother upgrading to the newer software in 'testing' for a number of months, and when I do I won't take any chances and will backup my partition before running the upgrade.
--
Finishing off with this: If Ubuntu does push through this change, I think it is going to generally be bad for the whole Linux ecosystem i.e. It will not encourage new users to move to Linux, and it might cause existing users to move away.
Last edited by g000h on 21 June 2019 at 5:45 am UTC
7 Likes, Who?
Interesting bit from Wine mailing list mentioned in post:
So, almost all Windows apps won`t be able to install in 64-bit wine. Looks like Canonical kinda did not think about that when made the decision, but I don`t see them changing their mind now.
And yes, I am so glad Linux Mint Debian Edition exists, hope it will become the new gaming distro for newcomers.
Quote> Many 64-bit applications still use either a 32-bit installer or some
> 32-bit components. In comparison 64-bit Windows will support 32-bit
> (probably) forever.
Make that almost all applications. It's very unusual for a program to
have a 64-bit installer, because it won't be able to control what
happens when a user runs the installer on 32-bit Windows.
In practice, the only cases where 64-bit only wine will be useful are
when 64-bit applications are packaged some other way (such as a .zip,
Steam Play, or packaging specifically for Wine) or for running Wine
builtins like msidb.
So, almost all Windows apps won`t be able to install in 64-bit wine. Looks like Canonical kinda did not think about that when made the decision, but I don`t see them changing their mind now.
And yes, I am so glad Linux Mint Debian Edition exists, hope it will become the new gaming distro for newcomers.
0 Likes
So like, just how many libraries are we talking about? And how much are they changing? How much maintenance does the capacity to run 32-bit applications require? It doesn't seem like it would be that huge a deal, in which case
1) They're dropping big functionality for small gain, which seems stupid, and
2) It will be easy for Ubuntu derivatives to just put the 32-bit libraries back.
But maybe it is a big deal. Maybe there's some huge amount of work involved in maintaining this stuff--or rather, in using the stuff Debian is already maintaining . . .
Could someone enlighten me on this?
1) They're dropping big functionality for small gain, which seems stupid, and
2) It will be easy for Ubuntu derivatives to just put the 32-bit libraries back.
But maybe it is a big deal. Maybe there's some huge amount of work involved in maintaining this stuff--or rather, in using the stuff Debian is already maintaining . . .
Could someone enlighten me on this?
4 Likes, Who?
This is a gaming site, so… what does it mean for games?
No more legacy 32bit WINE games (almost all of my WINE collection and 95% pre-2010 Windows™ games)?
Lots of native closed-source Linux games, like "Aquaria" (which developers went defunct) rendered unusable? Who will make Snaps for those?
Dropping 32bit support is foolish, IMO. My condolences to "*buntu" users. :(
No more legacy 32bit WINE games (almost all of my WINE collection and 95% pre-2010 Windows™ games)?
Lots of native closed-source Linux games, like "Aquaria" (which developers went defunct) rendered unusable? Who will make Snaps for those?
Dropping 32bit support is foolish, IMO. My condolences to "*buntu" users. :(
6 Likes, Who?
Quoting: Alm888...
Lots of native closed-source Linux games, like "Aquaria" (which developers went defunct)
...
Funny you mention Aquaria, one of the few exceptions that prove the rule, since it's been open sourced for years:
http://www.bit-blot.com/forum/index.php?topic=4313.0
^_^
Last edited by emphy on 21 June 2019 at 6:44 am UTC
6 Likes, Who?
no_information_here Jun 21, 2019
Quoting: ShmerlBut LTS distros are really not as good for desktop use case. Their main target audience are servers. That's why many gamers use rolling or more frequently than LTS release distros.This is not true at all. I have been using only LTS versions since at least 2012. I got tired of trying to keep up. In fact I use the last LTS for up to a year past the new one, just to make sure all the bugs are squashed. With decent ppa support I have had no problems playing anything. Keeping up with non-LTS Ubuntu is often a fools game and only for developers or enthusiasts. I am too old for that, now.
Stability rules. I would happily switch to Debian if my PPAs for nvidia drivers, telegram, vivaldi, keepasXC, insync, and spideroak keep working?
Edit: Just checking and it looks like most of those work fine. Hmm. Does anyone have any comments on the KDE Debian spin?
Last edited by no_information_here on 21 June 2019 at 7:08 am UTC
9 Likes, Who?
StormBeast Jun 21, 2019
All refugees shall be welcome at the church of "BTW, I use Arch" :D
8 Likes, Who?
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me