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<p>According to Steve on Ubuntu Discourse [1]:</p>
<p>> I’m sorry that we’ve given anyone the impression that we are
“dropping support for i386 applicationsâ€. 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.</p>
<p>Not sure if this matters, but this is just dropping *updates* to
the libs, and they'll be perpetually frozen at the 18.04 version
of the libraries. Clear guidelines will still need applied, yes,
but the point still stands this isn't 'eradicate the i386
libraries' it's 'we just won't update them, they'll be frozen in
time from 2018 versions'.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>So I think there's some misunderstandings here about what exactly
is going on...<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>[1] <a
href="https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/i386-architecture-will-be-dropped-starting-with-eoan-ubuntu-19-10/11263/84?u=d0od">https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/i386-architecture-will-be-dropped-starting-with-eoan-ubuntu-19-10/11263/84?u=d0od</a></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 6/23/19 12:51 PM, Mohamed Ikbel
Boulabiar wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAPHpN5MCy62SOxf0jR6Jpm3J2XjFJkx5wtzLVvHoFSgxHctHwg@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">Hi,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>As a ubuntu user and supporter, and as I have pushed for
this blueprint from 2010</div>
<div><a
href="https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/appdevs-dx-n-multitouch-and-games"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/appdevs-dx-n-multitouch-and-games</a><br>
</div>
<div>I want to comment this decision that it seems has many many
consequences. Specially for Wine and Steam.</div>
<div><a
href="https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-19-10-drops-32-bit-support/"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-19-10-drops-32-bit-support/</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Not supporting very old hardware is a thing, not allowing
old programs to run on a new ubuntu version is a very
different matter.</div>
<div>In the world of OS, there are 2 models that worked well:</div>
<div>1. The Microsoft way: Supporting old programs and most of
hardware no matter what this would affect new versions (and
sometimes stability), while having good commercial department
that makes companies buy<br>
</div>
<div><a
href="https://www.windowscentral.com/how-make-old-desktop-apps-run-again-windows-10"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.windowscentral.com/how-make-old-desktop-apps-run-again-windows-10</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>2. The Apple way: Supporting a small set of in-house
hardware, which means that hardware themselves and selling it
for a big amount of money while maintaining stability of
programs, developing the required set of applications used by
developers and creators or asking other big companies to
support the hardware and the OS into the most specific details
(hardware acceleration, battery optimisation, a specific
hardware like the touch bar etc.).</div>
<div>(Chromebooks fall into this category, a set of selected
well supported hardware)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In the decision of removing the support of old applications
like Steam from ubuntu, does the decision reflect one of the
above?</div>
<div>Some big companies can dictate what users and developers
can do, but before this, you need a huge market share and so
developers can't ignore you, and keep paying each year for the
application to stay on the app store, make forced updates to
support new dictations etc.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In a perfect world, all people will be using 64bit free
software that runs perfectly and for free, but we don't live
in a perfect world. We need Adobe to release its software for
Linux because that's what all designers use (yes ALL, just go
to any design conference), we need an adequate office suite
because that's what companies use and have as documents for
many decades already, and we need the platform to support
running new games from big publishers. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Looking into the past, it's very difficult to target
desktop Linux, the software stack changes very quickly, the
desktop itself changes and breaks basic interaction reflexes,
and applications will break with no continuous updates. From
2009 to now, almost nothing is made to welcome designers and
creators to Linux. LibreOffice still breaks docx and pptx
layout while newly made from scratch alternatives with fewer
developers support MS Office files better: <a
href="http://onlyoffice.com" moz-do-not-send="true">onlyoffice.com</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Linux worked very well on servers and in the cloud because
that part of the stack is more stable. It's even hidden from
the end user.</div>
<div>However, when it comes to other ubuntu users, we have
mainly researchers (AI, machine learning, computer vision,
...), part of the developers (the others have a Macbook Pro),
and people with limited resources to buy other hardware (I
suppose there are some internal user base analytics?).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So the question I am asking, putting aside per version
goals, how you see the future in 5, 10 or 20 years from now ?
An OS with a list of key components that entreprise customers
can use and switch to (for desktop and for servers). What's
the new bug #1 now?</div>
<div>Or maybe everybody will be using FuchsiaOS ? I don't want
that..</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My apologies for my long mail, and the kind-of rant.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Kind Regards,</div>
<div>Ikbel</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 5:38
PM Steve Langasek <<a
href="mailto:steve.langasek@ubuntu.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">steve.langasek@ubuntu.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Last
year, the Ubuntu developer community considered the question
of whether<br>
to continue carrying forward the i386 architecture in the
Ubuntu archive for<br>
future releases.[1] Â The discussion at the time was
inconclusive, but in<br>
light of the strong possibility that we might not include i386
as a release<br>
architecture in 20.04 LTS, we took the proactive step to
disable upgrades<br>
from 18.04 to 18.10 for i386 systems[2], to avoid accidentally
stranding<br>
users on an interim release with 9 months of support instead
of letting them<br>
continue to run Ubuntu 18.04 LTS with its 5 years of standard
support.<br>
<br>
In February of this year, I also posted to communicate the
timeline in which<br>
we would take a final decision about i386 support in 20.04
LTS[3], namely,<br>
that we would decide in the middle of 2019.<br>
<br>
The middle of 2019 has now arrived.  The Ubuntu engineering
team has<br>
reviewed the facts before us and concluded that we should not
continue to<br>
carry i386 forward as an architecture.  Consequently, i386
will not be<br>
included as an architecture for the 19.10 release, and we will
shortly begin<br>
the process of disabling it for the eoan series across Ubuntu<br>
infrastructure.<br>
<br>
While this means we will not provide 32-bit builds of new
upstream versions<br>
of libraries, there are a number of ways that 32-bit
applications can<br>
continue to be made available to users of later Ubuntu
releases, as detailed<br>
in [4].  We will be working to polish the 32-bit support
story over the<br>
course of the 19.10 development cycle. To follow the
evolution of this<br>
support, you can participate in the discourse thread at [5].<br>
<br>
[1] <a
href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2018-May/040310.html"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2018-May/040310.html</a><br>
[2] <a
href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-upgrader/1:18.10.10"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-upgrader/1:18.10.10</a><br>
[3] <a
href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2019-February/040598.html"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2019-February/040598.html</a><br>
[4] <a
href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2018-May/040348.html"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2018-May/040348.html</a><br>
[5] <a
href="https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/i386-architecture-will-be-dropped-starting-with-eoan-ubuntu-19-10/11263/2"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/i386-architecture-will-be-dropped-starting-with-eoan-ubuntu-19-10/11263/2</a><br>
<br>
-- <br>
Steve Langasek<br>
-- <br>
ubuntu-devel-announce mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:ubuntu-devel-announce@lists.ubuntu.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">ubuntu-devel-announce@lists.ubuntu.com</a><br>
<a
href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
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