It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Probably too early to tell, but how are we going to deal with Ubuntu dropping 32-bit support? It's bound to negatively affect Mint as well.

Staggeringly dumb. Spend years building up Ubuntu and Mint as the "go-to" distro for people wanting out of Windows -- and then undo everything by moves likes this.
avatar
Pangaea666: Probably too early to tell, but how are we going to deal with Ubuntu dropping 32-bit support? It's bound to negatively affect Mint as well.
Switch to another distro that hasn't completely dropped 32-bit support.

Linux Mint Debian Edition already exists so it shouldn't be such a huge effort for the Mint team to start using Debian as the base for the main releases. Otherwise if they stick with Ubuntu and Canonical's poor choices then I will probably have to switch to something else.

avatar
Pangaea666: Staggeringly dumb. Spend years building up Ubuntu and Mint as the "go-to" distro for people wanting out of Windows -- and then undo everything by moves likes this.
And with support for Windows 7 ending soon the timing for it couldn't be worse.
avatar
Pangaea666: Probably too early to tell, but how are we going to deal with Ubuntu dropping 32-bit support? It's bound to negatively affect Mint as well.

Staggeringly dumb. Spend years building up Ubuntu and Mint as the "go-to" distro for people wanting out of Windows -- and then undo everything by moves likes this.
This is a problem?

I suppose I am on Fedora where I can't imagine Ubuntu users reacting well to the idea that most of Python 2 is going to be interred next version.
avatar
Pangaea666: Probably too early to tell, but how are we going to deal with Ubuntu dropping 32-bit support? It's bound to negatively affect Mint as well.

Staggeringly dumb. Spend years building up Ubuntu and Mint as the "go-to" distro for people wanting out of Windows -- and then undo everything by moves likes this.
avatar
Darvond: This is a problem?

I suppose I am on Fedora where I can't imagine Ubuntu users reacting well to the idea that most of Python 2 is going to be interred next version.
(other Fedora user here)

Well, just imagine that Fedora drops all multi-lib for Fedora 31.
With many Linux native games only working with 32 bit libraries, and Wine Wow64 not always working correctly.
And for many games, it's already too late to port to 64 bit, because games are old or game developpers are defunct companies.
Furthermore, I don't think many devs will agree to rebuild their game portfolio just because.

Another reason that will be used against Linux as a whole, many users will flee and devs will drop support in the future.

Paradox is already ready to drop Linux support, Obsidian, InXile and DoubleFine have been purchased by Microsoft.
Things like 32 bit dropping are making difficulties for companies like Aspyr and Feral, so I don't think that there will be many other Linux ports.

Oh right, 64 bit only users will be very happy. To play one game or two, or to turn their PC to a workstation again.
Not sure it's a good thing.

There's still the *maybe* solution of flatpaks, for many games, and only popular ones, because if a game is a niche, noone will be intersted in providing those. And the very idea of Flatpak reminds me Windows DLL shipping. Or we can compile everything 32 bit ourselves.

So it's gaming like 1999.
Post edited June 21, 2019 by Huinehtar
avatar
adamhm: And with support for Windows 7 ending soon the timing for it couldn't be worse.
Just a couple of questions on the subject from a dual-booting Linux Newb since you're "the Unofficial Linux Support Guy" here :-)

1. Although people can use an alternate distro, how much of an impact do you think this will have on discouraging devs to not do future native Linux ports (if devs went out of their way to specifically target Ubuntu for support only to feel they've been 'thrown under a bus')? I mean with Windows, you're guaranteed 32-bit will be here a LONG time (plus another 10 years after that last version via Enterprise LTSC). Is there any genuine long-term (as in +10 years) guarantee for other distros not to do the same? I'm sure these are questions some devs are currently asking regarding "is it worth it or will something else change with whomever we "retarget" too"?

2. I take it GOG will have to repackage their 32-bit Linux games to avoid ending Linux support of 32-bit games / Ubuntu? And how much would this increase the installer size? Unless I'm missing something, small games like Escape Goat are going to look silly if they end up like 58MB "The Game" + 1GB "Whatever the Linux Equivalent Workaround is of bundling the whole SYSWOW64 folder with each game" (whilst the Windows version remains at 44MB) as the only easy fix for the gamer who wants a simple hassle-free installer without any of the other seemingly convoluted workarounds (or drop support for the most popular distro)?
Post edited June 21, 2019 by AB2012
avatar
AB2012: 2. I take it GOG will have to repackage their 32-bit Linux games to avoid ending Linux support of 32-bit games / Ubuntu?
I don't think repackaging is really a viable solution here. There are a lot of dependencies that can quite easily be bundled with the game as they don't change very often, but when it comes to the whole OpenGL/Vulkan graphic driver stack this would be a huge pain in the ass. You want to GOG to update all your games for every driver update ? It just doesn't scale very well with the current standalone installer concept.
imho the most likely solution as things stand right now is probably to just drop support for Ubuntu >= 19.10.

But since Valve/Steam is likewise screwed by this change... let's see how this whole thing develops. They will probably push a lot harder to find a good solution.
Post edited June 21, 2019 by immi101
avatar
Darvond: This is a problem?

I suppose I am on Fedora where I can't imagine Ubuntu users reacting well to the idea that most of Python 2 is going to be interred next version.
avatar
Huinehtar: -Fair reasons-
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense; but it is something of an eventuality. The fact that Mint would be doing it so soon would be quite stupid; especially without an urging from upstream or anywhere.
avatar
AB2012: 2. I take it GOG will have to repackage their 32-bit Linux games to avoid ending Linux support of 32-bit games / Ubuntu?
avatar
immi101: But since Valve/Steam is likewise screwed by this change... let's see how this whole thing develops. They will probably push a lot harder to find a good solution.
I feel that Valve's solution could easily be, "Ah, dropping support? Fine. We'll pack our bags and move to another distro. Here you are, SUSE RPMs for everyone."

Which would put the screws on Ubuntu/Mint.

(Which I honestly feel would be slightly deserved with many the decisions they've made.)
Post edited June 22, 2019 by Darvond
avatar
Darvond: I feel that Valve's solution could easily be, "Ah, dropping support? Fine. We'll pack our bags and move to another distro. Here you are, SUSE RPMs for everyone."

Which would put the screws on Ubuntu/Mint.

(Which I honestly feel would be slightly deserved with many the decisions they've made.)
It's been pretty quick:

Valve plans to drop support for Ubuntu 19.10 and up...
avatar
Darvond: I feel that Valve's solution could easily be, "Ah, dropping support? Fine. We'll pack our bags and move to another distro. Here you are, SUSE RPMs for everyone."

Which would put the screws on Ubuntu/Mint.

(Which I honestly feel would be slightly deserved with many the decisions they've made.)
avatar
Huinehtar: It's been pretty quick:

Valve plans to drop support for Ubuntu 19.10 and up...
Well, perhaps that finally means the death of Ubuntu's relevance. Good riddance.
avatar
AB2012: 1. Although people can use an alternate distro, how much of an impact do you think this will have on discouraging devs to not do future native Linux ports...?
It's difficult to say. This change will only affect 32-bit software so it will primarily affect legacy software and Wine - in most cases new software/games should be 64-bit now and won't be affected.

avatar
AB2012: 2. I take it GOG will have to repackage their 32-bit Linux games to avoid ending Linux support of 32-bit games / Ubuntu?
GOG would have to do as Valve are doing and just not support Ubuntu 19.10+, as just bundling libraries wouldn't be enough.
avatar
Darvond: Well, perhaps that finally means the death of Ubuntu's relevance.
Of course not.
Ubuntu Server is great at what it does, and has no use for 32-bit support.

Linux gamers might drop Ubuntu, but Canonical never really cared for them anyway.
And gamers themselves tend to favour rolling releases or any other kind of bleeding edge distributions. Ergo, not Ubuntu ;)
Can sort of understand the dislike for Ubuntu as they have done questionable things, which is why I have always used Mint instead of Ubuntu itself. Don't know if this is something possible to fix by the Mint team though? I don't really want to start to learn another distro when I genuinely like Mint. But if some of the older games (and fairly new ones for that matter) stop working, we have no choice but to abandon Mint :-(

avatar
vv221: Ubuntu Server is great at what it does, and has no use for 32-bit support.

Linux gamers might drop Ubuntu, but Canonical never really cared for them anyway.
And gamers themselves tend to favour rolling releases or any other kind of bleeding edge distributions. Ergo, not Ubuntu ;)
I am a gamer too, but prefer a stable system. I'm sure there must be heaps of people in the same camp, who are Linux gamers, but perhaps not as comfortable with changing this, that and the other thing on their own, so simply want a stable system that works out of the box -- hence Linux Mint. If that distro is effectively out the window now (sorry for the pun), it's going to be all that much harder for people on the fence to change to Linux, and others will probably go back to Windows.


As for GOG: They are probably more likely to drop Linux support altogether than try to get games working with a wide range of attached dependencies. Which again would be horrible, especially for people like me who don't touch steam with a bargepole and only buy games on GOG (or directly from the developers).


Hopefully there has been enough of a shitstorm after they idiotically made this decision that they will undo it.
avatar
Pangaea666: As for GOG: They are probably more likely to drop Linux support altogether than try to get games working with a wide range of attached dependencies.
But it's nothing like that. Games usually bundle the non-core deps anyway (they have to or life will be hard a few years down the road no matter what the supported distro is). The core deps are virtually identical across distros. There are a few unfortunate incompatibilities but those can usually be worked around without too much effort (any half-competent Linux team that is responsible for supporting hundreds of games will figure it out). In worst case GOG can say "sorry, we were unable to reproduce or fix this problem on our systems; if you'd like, we can convert the game into wallet funds." In fact that's what they're doing already. But it would be better if they tried to understand or reproduce the issue first before saying that you've got the wrong brand label on your collection of Linux packages.
Post edited June 23, 2019 by clarry
avatar
Pangaea666: Can sort of understand the dislike for Ubuntu as they have done questionable things, which is why I have always used Mint instead of Ubuntu itself. Don't know if this is something possible to fix by the Mint team though? I don't really want to start to learn another distro when I genuinely like Mint. But if some of the older games (and fairly new ones for that matter) stop working, we have no choice but to abandon Mint :-(
Someone on GamingOnLinux asked about what Mint will do and got this reply:
It’s a very good question but it’s a little bit soon for us to answer. It definitely means there won’t be a 32-bit version of Mint 20, but we’ll do everything we can to ship functional versions of Steam, Wine and popular 32-bit libs and applications. I can’t answer this without first knowing whether Ubuntu will address these issues, but I can confirm these are important to us and we’ll make sure they’re not overlooked.
So they'll either have to handle 32-bit support themselves (or collaborate with another group for it) or re-base on Debian or so (Linux Mint Debian Edition is already a thing)
avatar
immi101: imho the most likely solution as things stand right now is probably to just drop support for Ubuntu >= 19.10.

But since Valve/Steam is likewise screwed by this change... let's see how this whole thing develops. They will probably push a lot harder to find a good solution.
Valve are dropping Ubuntu as recommended distro. Probably GOG will do the same.