Intel 32bit packages on Ubuntu from 19.10 onwards

Actually, no games for Linux on GOG bundle their dependencies. This will cause an issue for all games outside of Steam, the chances of all these developers going back and updating their older games just for Linux is very slim.

There’s going to need to be a solution that’s simple for users, setting up containers is not and should not be expected of average users to do.

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There are many who still depend on legacy software, especially through Wine. IIRC, you need 32-bit libraries to use 32-bit Windows applications, right?

As a gamer, I play a decent amount of legacy games. One example is Origin (EA’s game client), which is still a 32-bit application if I remember correctly, and legacy games, like the first Mass Effect trilogy, are 32-bit applications.

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And let’s not forget that packaging propietary software n Flatpack and Snap would be impossible due to their licenses.

Please don’t make blanket statements like this. Licenses generally don’t preclude the way a piece of software is packaged. e.g. there are a ton of proprietary licensed software in both the Snap Store and flathub. There may be restrictions on distribution of some software, for sure, but it’s not “impossible”.

What about games requiring 32-bit libraries? And I mean games outside Steam. This is just a question since I am curious how that would be managed with all the restrictions on redistribution games usually have.

A game can be snapped even if it requires 32-bit libraries, as they can be bundled inside the snap. If built on 18.04, that archive can be used to source 32-bit libraries from.

However. Nobody is going to go through all the games in Steam, GOG and Itch.io (and whatever sources) and package them all up as snaps or flatpaks. Game developers have a well known process of putting out a game, and moving on to the next one. They often don’t re-visit a game to rebuild / patch / update it unless it’s financially profitable to do so. For example repackaging an old title for a new system such as the Nintendo Switch. As a result there is an expectation that games continue to work forever, without needing to be rebuild / repackaged.

So. With that in mind, I did some testing over lunch today. I took a few games from GOG and tested them on a 64-bit only system - eoan with 32-bit support removed. You can find the results at the thread below. It’s not pretty.

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Thanks for providing valuable testing. According to those results my fears have been confirmed. I seems quite clear that some basic multiarch should be supported in the 64-bit main repo for some time, it is too soon to completely drop off multiarch (maybe for 22.04 but time will tell).

I do agree with dropping i386 as a supported architecture since we only care about basic multiarch libs the rest of the i386 repo is not useful.

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Q. What happens for derivative distributions such as Linux Mint, Pop_OS and Zorin?

Many other Linux distributions have already moved to 64-bit only. Ubuntu derivatives can continue to build upon the Ubuntu 18.04 archive which provides i386 packages. We anticipate derivative distributions will also stop providing 32-bit installation media in line with other mainstream distributions, and in most cases they already have.

Pop!_OS maintainers have already stated that they will maintain 32-bit library support as their users still rely on it, even if that means they adopt maintainership of Xorg and Mesa in their OS.

Q. Doesn’t Steam use 32 bit libraries? How can I play my games?

Steam itself bundles a runtime containing necessary 32-bit libraries required to run the Steam client. In addition each game installed via Steam may ship 32-bit libraries they require. We’re in discussions with Valve about the best way to provide support from 19.10 onwards.

It may be possible to run 32 bit only games inside a lxd container running a 32 bit version of 18.04 LTS. You can pass through the graphics card to the container and run your games from that 32bit environment.

I’m wary of running games in any virtualized/container level state. Games can get pretty performance heavy and any abstraction (snap, flatpak, LXC/Docker/rkt, and LXD) will add some loss to performance there. And no, many 32-bit Windows applications don’t always “just work” in 64-bit WINE. It’s really app dependent.

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Note that this solution requires installing the proprietary NVidia libraries in the container. Will that still work when the next Ubuntu LTS ships with updated NVidia drivers, but you can still only install the old NVidia libraries in the 18.04 container?

I strongly suspect that the answer is no and that this proposed solution therefore isn’t actually viable.

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So with that test, will Ubuntu consider reversing their decision to drop support for 32-bit libraries, or will Wine be Snapped? What’s gonna happen now? @willcooke

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OK, so now Valve will no longer support Steam on Ubuntu from 19.10 and onward:
https://twitter.com/Plagman2/status/1142262103106973698

… will also switch our focus to a different distribution, currently TBD.

:persevere:

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Folks,

Gentle reminder that “I don’t like this decision” and “You are destroying Ubuntu” and “I’m taking my marbles and going to another distro” posts are not constructive or useful, and will be promptly removed.

Real data on consequences is constructive.
New issues discovered are constructive.
Options to move forward are constructive.
Forming community working groups to overcome blockers is constructive

Gamers, there are already other game-related and steam-related threads on this topic. Your accurate testing results are welcome there.

Why not maintain just a necessary to run almost all games and apps?

Maybe more os less 100 packages with i386 architeture, that not the same of maintain all i386 repository, just help lot users, and dramatically reduce the job needed to maintain Ubuntu repositories.

Make users happy, make devs happy, make Ubuntu filosophy. More humanity and less autority.

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I think it’s not unreasonable for people to express frustration here. Given the potential impact of the change being mooted. Obviously we’d rather people were respectful in their interactions here.

I would imagine volunteers such as yourself don’t fancy spending the entire weekend moderating comments on this site, either. It’s a hot topic though and I suspect people feel the need to vent a little. I do hope they appreciate we are reading all of this, and do appreciate the constructive suggestions and feedback.

Bear in mind the change being outlined hasn’t happened yet, and we’re still gathering feedback. :heart:

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Hi. I really appreciate your efforts to keep the discussion clear and civil. Passions are going to run a bit high about this, though, so it might be sensible to allow a bit of discussion to play out for a while. The Linux world is watching, and I think it is important the community forum doesn’t show a deaf ear.

I’m glad that the devs are listening to the community, I hope the feedback and testing is useful to make a good decision.

I also want to remind that it’s good to follow the Ubuntu philosophy, we can all benefit from different points of view.

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Am not an ubuntu developer or someone with influence or power to change this decision but I would like to give my personal opinion about this and how it impacts my life for the better part of the last 15 years,just to give a point of view of someone who has personally taken ubuntu to the core.

Since around 2008 I have promoted ubuntu over other distros, over windows and even over mac. Basically a bit more than a decade. I managed to help somewhere around 2k new users to Ubuntu that most still enjoy it today. Of the many points I got asked, one always stands out, which is gaming on linux. In this case, gaming on Ubuntu.

This is my biggest selling point to convince most users to not only use but also stay on Linux. In my particular life, convince, teach and make someone love ubuntu, stay on it and enjoy it everyday.

If you check on askubuntu you will see a wine question that was created a long time ago with the effort of communicating to the public and showing new users that you can potentially play windows games on Ubuntu, run Microsoft products on Ubuntu and do many things that I had to fight, struggle and dedicate myself in order to find ways for new users to end up loving ubuntu (got a bit carried away but it has been10 years dedicated to ubuntu here). So when this announcement came, I actually thought it was a great idea. I mean it’s 2019 and 64 bit stuff is almost 2 decades old. So I was all for it. But then I saw the post about wine developers and the issues they would have, potentially crippling new users and existing users to stay in Ubuntu. Then today I see the one about steam and what their thoughts are about leaving Ubuntu 19.10 and future versions. Basically killing the biggest points I use to promote Ubuntu for everyone.

Obviously this is not critical from a development point of view, but I hope someone reads this and understands the effort I have put for an operating system (and even a community like askubuntu) and then see all of this happening and the negative effect it would have primarily on the community. I hope this small grain of sand helps a bit in reversing this decision, looking for an alternative (which I can see it is being worked on) but not affect the community in a way that would make ubuntu a distro that is npt an option for many users. Thank you.

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“Support” is such a nebulous term.

If Valve “supports” any Linux-based distribution, I don’t see why on Ubuntu you wouldn’t be able to put that into a container and then just run it. Games don’t generally need to interact with the rest of your desktop anyway, and my understanding is that kernel support in Ubuntu for running 32-bit userspace processes isn’t going away.

In other words, I don’t see how, technically, it will suddenly become impossible for you to run Steam on an Ubuntu system, assuming that Steam continues to work on some supported Linux distribution. In theory it could become more difficult to get set up to do it, but I don’t see why that couldn’t be automated. There certainly seems to be enough demand that someone is likely to volunteer a tutorial at the minimum, and at best it’d all be encapsulated into a package (deb, snap, shell script or whatever) that you just install.

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But what about old printer and MFP drivers that actually need to interact with hardware for things like printing, scanning, sending/receiving faxes, supporting MFP buttons “scan to PC”, etc.? Even if it’s possible to run those things in containers, how they are going to get there if user double click on binary installer or i386 deb downloaded from vendor’s web-site?

As for Steam - keep in mind that games published there need to interact with 32 bit OpenGL implementation, which means not only providing 32-bit Mesa as container dependency (which is Ok) and keeping it updated in timely manner (because in Linux gaming availability of fresh Mesa version make a difference between working system and GPU hang) but also providing every version of 32 bit Nvidia driver that should match version of kernel driver to be operational.

Honestly, I’m all for dropping i386 repo, but solutions for keeping people’s hardware and software running have be tested in real world and be reliable. At this moment there is no solutions, but only blind assumption, that these solutions could be created (which could be possible, but it’s remain to be seen). Dropping i386 now is like putting the cart before the horse.

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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.

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