What about legacy software written fifteen years ago? It’s really shortsighted to drop support for 32bit if there’s no solution available.
And I don’t share moderator’s view to split the discussion as this thread is the one which is linked to in multiple discussions. It feels like moderators are hiding the negative comments into another thread, out of view.
This seems like one of the most self defeating & user-hostile moves in history
I wouldn’t to call it “hostile”. I like to think that it is just a bad move that affects more users than they though.
Next year is the eol for W7 and Ubuntu based distros are always the first suggestion for any friend/relative that doesn’t like W10 or wants to try something new. From my point of view, Ubuntu devs must understand that 32 bit support is not mandatory but necessary in order to make life easier to people that comes from other OS. This discussion is more UX than technical, so users requirements inputs should be handled very seriously (and I think that they understood it in that way is as we already have some sort of backtracking to the original idea).
So yeah, what users wants/needs has a big weight on this topic.
It just seems to cack-handed, just when gaming on Linux was making some great ground one of the biggest distributions that’s designed with new users in mind pulls something like this and when objections are raised the response is “should have said something sooner”
Even if the decision is reversed why would users trust Ubuntu going forward? Why would companies like Valve or Crossover & big projects like Wine trust Ubuntu going forward?
I’d be hard pressed now to recommend Ubuntu to anyone considering migrating
Very few dispute dropping i386 install media & we can agree there’s no point maintaining an i386 tree of every linux utility & program when there are x86_64 versions available
Pare all that back, absolutely but there was no need to throw the baby out with the bath water
Reading that makes me sad, I hope it was just a poor choice of words on your part …
No, the OS certainly does not dictate any terms. It enables the user to actually do useful (to the user) things with the hardware, that’s it. Yes, Microsoft (via Windows) do dictate terms, but that’s neither natural nor in any way desirable. IMHO, FOSS’ raison d’être could be summarised as “so nobody gets to dictate terms” – it’s certainly one of the main attractions for me.
Also, where’s this idea that it’s desirable or even necessary to move everything to 64 bits come from? It’s not like it’s inherently better. Removing multiarch is not a step forward, it’s a step back. Literally. I’m just a user, but I’ve been running Debian amd64 since before it became an official architecture, Ubuntu on & off since the beginning, and I remember the struggle for the comparatively elegant multiarch solution we have now.
There’s no technical reason for removing it, it is, at best, done for cost-cutting reasons. That’s fine, I just wish people wouldn’t frame it as progressive.
Hi everyone, thanks for all the feedback. There is an official response here:
This is a promising reply. However, snaps are still not a long-term solution. Please stop acting like they are.
That’s an improvement, but it doesn’t address why, given that it was said that “On the list of known blockers for removing the i386 port are Steam and Wine (sic)” over a year ago on the mailing list linked to, zero work or discussion seems to have happened with Steam and the WINE developers in the past twelve months.
Instead, this came as a surprise to them. Why?
I get that servers are where Canonical makes most of its money, but the cost in reputation for doing this to a large chunk of desktop users in the way it’s been done is substantial.
You use an older OS for that. Ubuntu can’t stop developing, just to keep old apps, devices going. Everyone knew 32 bit is going away, a long time. Also, when Windows pulls the plug, all 32bit software have to move to 64bit or close shop.
Ubuntu is a Linux distro that goes forward all the time. It cannot wait until someone dictates to it. Best move to 64 bit now, and concentrate on that than wasting resources on older dying system.
I once used 8bit and 16bit, nothing is left now. I don’t even have a 32 bit device for a decade or so, only that 64 bit device that runs a 32 bit Windows 10. One day, it is going to be a museum piece.
All 32bit apps that Wine runs, would stop existing when MS decides to pull the plug. Btw, why should Ubuntu or any other Linux distro be dictated by Wine or what Wine can or cannot? Wine has nothing to do with Linux and its apps, only Windows apps, so what does Wine advertise?
You use an older OS for that.
That’s not necessarily an option. Older OSs generally speaking do not work on modern hardware because the hardware requires support which hadn’t been developed yet. That’s only an option if you’re also running older hardware.
You can’t have the cake and eat it. You run old apps on older OSs on older hardware. If you still have a Commodore or an Atari around, and have enough patience , you can still run pretty old games.
Mind sharing your phone history for ten years?
With linux and ubuntu, I’ve had the cake and eaten it too.
you really need to contact valve directly.
webnews completely blew this out of proportion with a landslide of article and what started out as a provokative tweet they were willing to backpedal on if they saw you backpedaled too became a public fact.
You guys need to come to an agreement and quick. If you loose steam, you loose all of your desktop userbase like that.
And I don’t wanna hear “We don’t care”. having geeks use a distro for their desktop is how it ends up being recommended by that geek (who’s also a sysadmin) as the choice of server OS for a massive server farm.
Aha, a mobile phone? I don’t have an Ubuntu phone, but Nexus 6, which is 64 bit. I believe the OS is also 64 bit, Android Pie.
If Ubuntu is going only 64 bit, I am all for it. It’ll be a waste of resources to stay with the dying 32 bit stuff. All Linux distros would leave 32 bit in time, in the very near future, if they already hadn’t. I think 128bit is around the corner.
Sure, you do that when you don’t have an abstraction layer that let you run those apps, but this is not the case.
I think that at this point you definitely understood that not having i386 libs affects AMD64 applications in wine too, not to mention that many people reported some problems with proprietary hardware drivers. So, stop burying your head in the sand and start understanding others peoples requirements as it’s quite evident that some i386 libraries are required by many users, so their support totally worth’s it
Yes, definitely it is…
Hi Will Cooke,
Thanks for the update. I’m glad you guys at Canonical made an effort to respond to the community’s feedback.
Best regards
A wise decision. Glad to see developers are listening. This experience also shows, ironical as it may seem, that Ubuntu is very much loved and needed in this world. Yes, on desktops if you can believe it. Keep on the good work. And please post if there is some way I (and probably others) can help in you efforts.