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posted by chromas on Tuesday June 25 2019, @03:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the hold-your-horses dept.

Ubuntu Compromises on 32-Bit App Support

Canonical, the developer of Ubuntu, has backtracked on an earlier announcement that Ubuntu 19.10 will no longer update 32-bit packages and applications, announcing today that Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04 will support select 32-bit apps.

The news follows Valve and the developers of Wine, an open source compatibility layer for running Windows apps on other operating systems, saying they would stop supporting Ubuntu completely.

[...] In response, Canonical said it will work with select developers of 32-bit apps to ensure these apps continue to work on Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04. However, these apps may only work under more stringent requirements, such as running them in Ubuntu containers, something that may not appease Steam and Wine developers.

Long-term, Canonical still thinks 32-bit apps need to go, since most are not updated and present a security risk.

Also at Engadget and ZDNet.

Older: Steam is dropping support for Ubuntu, but not Linux entirely
Steam ending support for Ubuntu over 32-bit compatibility


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by stretch611 on Tuesday June 25 2019, @11:52PM (2 children)

    by stretch611 (6199) on Tuesday June 25 2019, @11:52PM (#859923)

    Actually, many of these applications are still actively maintained right now.

    The biggest 2 applications are WINE and the Steam Client.

    A large number of games also require 32-bit libraries and are unlikely to be updated.

    Also, a Canonical Developer Tries Running GOG Games On 64-Bit-Only Ubuntu 19.10 Setup [phoronix.com] and failed miserably. Which also points out that nobody even attempted to see the real impact of this decision before making it.

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
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  • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday June 26 2019, @02:34AM

    by Pino P (4721) on Wednesday June 26 2019, @02:34AM (#859963) Journal

    Actually, many of these applications are still actively maintained right now.

    The biggest 2 applications are WINE and the Steam Client.

    Wine is available in 32-bit and 64-bit editions. In theory, developers of 32-bit Windows applications that run in 32-bit Wine could recompile them as 64-bit Windows applications that run in 64-bit Wine. Valve could recompile the Steam client as a 64-bit application, and developers of games available through Steam could recompile them as well. However, many Windows applications run through Wine and games available through Steam are unmaintained.

    A large number of games also require 32-bit libraries and are unlikely to be updated.

    In theory, a game's developer could commission a 64-bit version of each library used by the game from the developer of said library. In practice, many of these libraries are unmaintained.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 26 2019, @08:59AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 26 2019, @08:59AM (#860034)

    Newer games have 64-bit versions, or sometimes only 64-bit versions, on GOG too.

    Not that it'll help old ones.