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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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246 comments
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Scoopta Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: ScooptaI don't play any 32-bit games so steam is the only reason I even need it enabled on my distro.

Do you check this before buying a game? How?
No I don't, I wish there was a way...maybe there is but I don't know it. I just don't buy games very often and everything I play in my library is 64-bit. I guess in theory you could buy, check, and refund but that's inconvenient. I just got lucky that I don't really play any 32-bit games at this point. In my experience 32-bit is mostly source 1 games and indie games that don't use Unity. Almost everything else(outside of proton) is 64-bit in my experience. Of course I'm just a sample size of one. Might be that the games I play I just get lucky with.


Last edited by Scoopta on 22 June 2019 at 3:49 pm UTC
Eike Jun 22, 2019
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Quoting: ScooptaNo I don't, I wish there was a way...maybe there is but I don't know it.

I wonder if SteamDB might have this available somehow. Don't know.
Scoopta Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: ScooptaNo I don't, I wish there was a way...maybe there is but I don't know it.

I wonder if SteamDB might have this available somehow. Don't know.
Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. Some games are easy to tell based on their files. For example Unity games. There are a very rare few that are 32-bit only. The executable for unity games end with .x86 for 32-bit and .x86_64 for 64-bit. If there's only one executable and it's .x86 then you know it's only 32-bit. But that only works for unity games which are mostly 64-bit anyway, most actually come with both so they work everywhere.
iiari Jun 22, 2019
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Quoting: GuestWhat annoys me personally is i will of course drop ubuntu but some non FOSS stuff i use is supported on Ubuntu only. Or poorly supported on other distros.
Seriously? Apps that don't have good support on, say, the Arch AUR as well? What titles?
deathxxx Jun 22, 2019
Maybe go for Endless OS whitch have already flatpack?
mphuZ Jun 22, 2019
OK. Let's see if Valve will be consistent in their decision:
https://appletoolbox.com/2019/06/macos-catalina-and-your-32-bit-apps

Pikolo Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: Satoru
Quoting: vectorI say this tongue-in-cheek so don't flame me, but perhaps Ubuntu would like to deprecate support for OpenGL as well; after all, Apple is deprecating OpenGL support :P

At least Apple

1) CLEARLY communicated that 32-bit and OpenGL was deprecated YEARS in advance
2) Did not hem and haw about 'well maybe we'll get rid of it in 20.04'
3) CLEARLY made an OS update that bugged users about their apps potentially not working in future releases
4) Only after 2-3 years of such updates, notification, etc is 32-bit support finally ending with OSX Catalina
5) OpenGL was declared deprecated last year, it still is not offically dead even in Catalina. yes its likely soon, but Apple has been screaming about converting to Metal for years. to the point where Aspyr and Feral back ported their entire steam library to Metal last year

Canonical's plan

1) "You have 4 months sorry!"

If Canonical is going to copy all of Apple's bad decisions, then they should also copy the part where Apple spent YEARS clearly communicating to both devs and users, with popups and warning. As opposed to dropping a bomb on people with 4 months notice, and then when users upgrade to 19.10 in 4 months suddenly 50% of the Linux games will stop working and Proton/Wine also dies with it.

So much this↑. Seriously, WTF do you mean you're removing an important part of the ecosystem with only 4 months notice? This is not a serious approach. If they wanted to test a 64 bit only Ubuntu, Canonical should have said it's a test. Deprecating 32 bit installers was clearly communicated and few people were taken by surprise. If Ubuntu announced they're marking 32-bit multilib as deprecated, they could have done so, but removing it out of the blue is a terrible idea.

I think one of the reasons steam is a 32-bit application despite supporting only 64-bit OSs is so that users don't notice whether the games themselves are 64 or 32-bit. Since installing the package pulls in 32 bit, you have both anyway.

I would be OK with openSuse Leap becoming the new Linux home for Steam. I remember that installing Nvidia drivers broke the package manager and that's how I ended up with Kubuntu, but I'm sure they could solve it. I head rumours steam was considering Flatpack as a way of cleanly packaging the old steam runtime and moving to a new one, but that was last year so it might have just been rumours.
Orkultus Jun 22, 2019
Well with 32bit going away, it takes away that famous statement for Linux."Linux makes older computers come back to life". Yeah of course we could still use older versions of Distros, but that support wont be there any more.


Last edited by Orkultus on 22 June 2019 at 4:53 pm UTC
Boldos Jun 22, 2019
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F**k...... :O
wvstolzing Jun 22, 2019
Quoting: gradyvuckovic
Quoting: keanI would even pay for it if everything works well.

I'd happily sign up to that, $10/month for a Valve developed Linux OS which provides the best possible gaming experience for Linux? Hell yes, give me that.

Kinda off-topic but I'm somewhat terrified that the idea of a 'subscription model' OS comes so naturally to people nowadays.
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