I have a Pascal GPU. I knew it had to happen eventually. At least we're getting some decent advance warning. It has been nice having a GPU under active driver support for a while...

I really hope that Nvidia hands over the support for these GPUs to the NVK team and does whatever's necessary to open up full access to these chips as well. If they're not going to support them, then at least give the community what it needs to support them in Nvidia's place.

I know, I'm not going to hold my breath but a guy can hope...

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2038 is the hard cut-off date for 32-bit applications. After this date, 32-bit applications will not be able to measure time accurately

So, basically, the Y2K problem all over again? I must be really out of touch -- I didn't even realize this problem existed. That being said, 32-bit systems can still use 64-bit numbers. Odds are pretty high, though, that the default was to use 32-bit numbers on 32-bit systems. Just like with Y2K, adjustments to existing software are going to be needed ...

Fedora can't just drop the ~9000 packages that have nothing to do with Steam because of the way their build system is made.

I got that sense as well. It would take a great deal of study and careful planning. I think that one of the goals of the proposal was to get the ball rolling on that process.

Native 32-bit Linux games not being playable on Linux is an overblown issue. The fact is, most of them are not playable even with Steam Runtimes in my experience. Proton is the better choice in most cases.

I tried to argue that "Proton may be a better choice than Native" a year or so back on this site, for this reason. The hostility I got as blowback was palpable.

There was also some amount of civil discussion and quite a lot of good points raised. I think this change proposal was pretty successful in that respect.

Once I got around to reading a bit of the thread, I thought so too.

Hopefully, when they decide to revisit this problem, they will be a little clearer on the goals of the new proposal -- particularly avoiding short soundbites that can be exploited by the clickbait sites and YouTubers. We all know that this issue will need to be revisited again at some point.

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@syylk

against planned obsolescence which would require you to buy a new iPhone every time the old one's warranty expires

Oh, you don't want to get me started on Apple. I sold their products in the '90s and '00s. Among many issues, they punished my business if we tried to provide good customer service to our customers -- by refusing to take back DOAs we accepted back from our customers. The experience of being an Apple dealer made me intensely hostile to the company and its policies. Apologies to any Apple fans on this site but I will not purchase or recommend Apple products to anyone.

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@syylk

Thank you for your calm and reasoned response.

Because the engineer proposing the change says so in the very discussion thread this article is about

You caught me. I haven't had time to read the thread (until now). Thank you for the link to the relevant data. While one could argue that it's just his word, I am reasonably satisfied from what was wrote that RH is not directly involved.

the technology we're discussing to get rid of (again and again) is so old

I don't think there should be a time limit on reuse. Do you?

That being said, it is really irrelevant for, as you point out, work is in progress to address these concerns. I haven't looked into the status of WOW64 recently but my understanding is that it is still a work-in-progress. So yes, we are getting closer to the point that 32-bit libraries may no longer be necessary. I simply prefer caution over exuberance.

I have a number of games that are installed in 32-bit prefixes, but you are right. I am finding that more and more of them no longer seem to need that special treatment. (Although, Winetricks tends to complain a great deal about the 64-bit ones when adding dependencies.)

The ancient Irish had a legal system that was quite successful for a very long time. One of the hallmarks believed to have contributed to its longevity was that the judges, lawyers, and kings would meet regularly to discuss the laws, whether they were still relevant and whether they needed to be changed or revoked. Every four years, I think.

Based on what I read in the discussion, this is not much different. It is a periodic review to determine just how relevant the 32-bit libraries are and whether or not the point has been reached to consider their removal. Filtering out the opinions of zealots on either side, of course. There was some discussion about identifying which 32-bit libraries are still being actively used (Steam, Bazzite, et al) and just removing those that aren't. Overall, I am quite impressed by the process. Everyone is entitled to express their opinion as they work towards a consensus. I am quite confident that they will come to a reasonable decision.

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@syylk

can we please stop blabbering about corporate greed and for-profit progressism? These are guys helping for free in their free time. It's not IBM, it's not RedHat, it's a different thing.

Since only two people commented about this, I'm going to assume you're talking about me.

Please slow down and read what I wrote more carefully. I did not say that corporations were directly involved or that the volunteers were corporate flunkies. I said that there is no need for open source volunteers to employ a philosophy developed by a corporate for-profit mentality. A completely different thing.

Besides, how do you know that this issue is not being influenced by IBM or RedHat in some way? If we maintain old things, we do not buy new things.

Resources are scarce.

This is precisely why it is so important that the volunteers step up to maintain these old technologies. You know that -- with the possible exception of companies like GOG or Valve -- the for-profit sector is not going to do it. Our society has been devaluing the idea of maintenance against the "convenience" of a throwaway habit that only benefits the for-profit sector -- at the expense of our society, culture and environment. In fact, it is the lack of maintenance that is causing this resource scarcity.

It's too early now? Most likely yes.

It is too early. We need to fully develop and deploy the containers, runtimes and technologies like WOW64 that enable 32-bit apps to run in a 64-bit environment before we abandon the libraries needed to run them right now. Honestly, even in the corporate world, there are businesses that still utilize Windows XP or Windows 98 because of a critical application that absolutely will not run in modern operating systems.

Do I have a solution?

For now, IMO, the solution is to continue supporting 32-bit libraries. Which, of course, means that we will see more reviews such as this one popping up periodically in the future.

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Not my mind of game but I am impressed by the underlying thought and technologies they've put into this product.

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Bonehead idealogical decisions like this potential one is one of the major reasons I have stayed away from Fedora.

no good reason why 32 bit applications should still be a thing in 2025

Who says? The followers of a progress-first ideology that was founded on maximizing corporate profits at the expense of all other benefits? All that has done is to create a throwaway culture that fails to value anything from the past.

This is not supposed to be what drives Linux development. Torvalds has always said that what makes Linux stand out is it's backwards compatibility. Why should Linux ape the mentality of the for-profit sector?

Valve should go full 64bit, and drop/integrate the 32bit requirement/legacy.

You may feel this is a good idea but that does not mean that Valve agrees. There could be a very good reason they have not done this (don't ask me what, I have no idea myself).

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Sorry, Liam. I'm going to disqualify myself. By the time that the NES rolled out, I was already deeply into the PC gaming scene, first on the C64/128, then on the Amiga and eventually (reluctantly, due to the death of the far superior Amiga) on DOS. I barely even looked at consoles until SNES and Genesis (Mega Drive) came out. Even then, I found the closed ecosystems limiting and boring compared to personal computers.

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@Cyba.Cowboy

In saying that, changing the architecture would make it significantly more difficult for all of the existing games to run smoothly, if at all

That would make Handheld PCs with ARM-based CPUs more suitable to a closed ecosystem, I would think.

For the purposes of an open ecosystem, I think AMD is on the right path.

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@TheBard

And it's much more rational to give donations to foundations than to for-profit companies owned by shareholders.

To you, maybe. In my daily life, I see it all the time at the grocery stores, pet food stores, department stores and even fast-food restaurants and banks. I can't recall any specifics, but I'm willing to bet I've encountered it online as well (before GOG). The majority of these companies are for-profit and/or owned by shareholders. Claiming it's for a charity doesn't mean the charity is getting all the funds.

Besides, once again, I will point out that this is fundraising to support GOG's Game Preservation Project, which is a sideline, not part of GOG's daily business of selling digital games. They are not as big as Valve/Steam and perhaps do not have the discretionary funds to support this entirely out of their revenues. It's not like they're asking for general tips like a "tip me" button on some blogger's site.

It seems to me that the real issue behind all of this negativity is a general lack of trust in companies and other organizations. Not surprising, really ...

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