
Statement on 32-bit i386 packages for Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04 LTS - reddotX
https://ubuntu.com/blog/statement-on-32-bit-i386-packages-for-ubuntu-19-10-and-20-04-lts
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fwsgonzo
A very reasonable and grounded take on the whole thing. Makes me appreciate
what goes on in the background behind these big distributions.

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silversconfused
Why'd we go through all the pain of implementing multiarch if they are just
going to drop "old reliable" compatibility and go back to single arch?

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PhasmaFelis
Were people upset that they were stopping support for 32-bit _hardware?_ Or
that they were stopping support for running 32-bit apps on 64-bit installs?

It looks to me like most people were pissed about the latter, but I'm not
clear if Canonical was actually planning to _do_ the latter. It seems like
their communication about it was poor, either way.

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olliej
Such a shame.

As long as companies continue to believe that they can bully distros into
supporting outdated platforms rather than just dropping them, then those
companies will continue to produce software that only runs on those outdated
systems.

Ubuntu has now demonstrated that if they try this in future they can be
bullied into reversing course.

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std_throwaway
The software has already been produced. Games are a kind of art and "outdated
systems" are needed to play them. Nobody would say that we shouldn't produce
the instruments needed to play classical music since there has been plenty of
time to do so in the past and when somebody wants to listen to it they should
use digital recordings instead.

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doubleunplussed
It sounds like things are on track. In this blog post, canonical is talking
about containerising 32-bit support so that the 'ultimate fate' of the 32 bit
libs is a situation in which these games can still be played. I'll be totally
satisfied if you can run a 32 bit application in some equivalent of DOSbox.
It's going to happen eventually, and I think people will accept it so long as
a practical alternative is in place.

