[lubuntu-devel] [lubuntu-users] dropping i386/PPC (was: Re: State of PPC)

Wed Nov 16 22:58:48 UTC 2016

Aere: I think what Ubuntu is discussing is removing i386/x86/32-bit, i.e.
going all amd64/x64/64-bit. And yes, it would very negatively impact many
Lubuntu users as well as the goals of the Lubuntu project as a whole.

Unfortunately, I was not able to make it to the session. For those of us in
the same boat, here's some links:
 * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXzYG4d7poQ
 * EtherPad: http://pad.ubuntu.com/uos-1611-architecture-discussions
 * IRC: https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2016/11/16/%23ubuntu-uos-core.html#t14:55

The majority of this conversation concerned PPC. I think the long answer is
there are some rather annoying endian bugs and a yaboot issue that no one
currently supporting PPC (Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Server) has the
resources to deal with. Not to mention upstream. I'll let those leading the
discussion (cc'd) confirm this, but it sounds like by when support for
existing PPC releases end, it will be time to stop providing any sort of
PPC images.

As far as my perspective is concerned, I'm perfectly happy with dropping
PPC. It makes me sad. PPC brought me to the Lubuntu community. However, it
becomes increasingly harder to make PPC users happy. The successes that we
have had in recent times are largely by accident. Neither Lubuntu nor
Ubuntu MATE have the resources to support PPC. It does sound like Ubuntu
Server will be dropping PPC. I think it only makes sense for us to follow
suit.

Apparently, there are plans in place to evaluate the health of the PPC port
during the Z cycle and so a decision on removing PPC from the archives will
likely come in 6 months time. Even then, it sounds like that's going to be
a temporary delay to PPC's inevitable removal.

Turning to x86, one of the things that was brought up in this discussion
was limited support for x86 among browsers. Chrome (and yes, upstream
Chromium) dropped support for it entirely. Firefox continues to provide x86
support though there is [some talk][1] about removing support for some CPU
extensions which could affect a small subset of x86 users. Probably not a
big issue. Suffice it to say, this seems to be a moot issue.

However, there was some discussion about the fact that since the vast
majority of new machines are x86_64, much in the way of development and QA
(even upstream) has been done on x86_64, and as such x86 bugs are popping
up that were not otherwise being noticed.

Ubuntu has moved x86 download links to alternate downloads, so you have to
actually hunt for them. Apparently, there's not a lot of backlash on this.
Of course, we all know Unity isn't exactly all that usable on these vintage
of machines.

One thing I'm happy to hear is that no one's talking about removing x86
outside of Ubuntu Desktop and Server (nothing definitive yet). It doesn't
sound like it's going to be removed from the archives. The feeling appears
that it's well supported upstream. That said, it's on the shoulders of
flavors to decide on what to do.

[1]:
https://chuttenblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/sse2-support-in-firefox-users/

On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 9:30 AM, Aere Greenway <Aere at dvorak-keyboards.com>
wrote:

> On 11/16/2016 05:45 AM, Julien Lavergne wrote:
>
>> 2016-11-14 21:36 GMT+01:00 Walter Lapchynski <wxl at ubuntu.com>:
>>
>>> It should be pointed out that this discussion is not only about PPC but
>>> it's
>>> also about i386. Since i386 is a major target of Lubuntu, I would advise
>>> attendance.
>>>
>>> I'm woking this day, so I will not be able to attempt :-(
>>
>> However, dropping i386 will be a very bad signal for our users. It
>> will be difficult to maintain the fact that Lubuntu is for old
>> computers if this kind of support is dropped ...
>>
>> Regards,
>> Julien Lavergne
>>
>> Walter & Julien:
>
> What is meant by the proposal of "dropping i386"?
>
> Does it mean dropping all 32-bit machines (as 'i386' in Debian packages
> would imply)?
>
> If so, I think that would be a very extreme, draconian thing to do.
>
> In my particular case, it would mean that seven of the machines in my
> test-bed would have to be consigned to the junk-heap.
>
> If it affects me this drastically, I'm sure it will negatively impact a
> lot of other users.
>
> Even if a machine can run 64-bit, if it doesn't have a lot of memory, I
> will use the i386 version of the OS, because it uses the limited memory
> better, and requires measurably less memory for the OS.
>
> If, on the other hand, 'dropping i386' means removing support for
> Intel-based machines that don't have support of certain
> machine-instructions, it would be less of an impact (probably two machines
> in my test-bed to be junked), but I would also loose the ability to test
> with minimum machines because of that.
>
> I am unable to test with virtual box machines because virtual box
> introduces too much latency (delay between pressing a key and hearing the
> sound).
>
> --
> Sincerely,
> Aere
>
>

-- 
       @wxl | polka.bike
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