Unfortunately, legacy applications that aren’t being updated anymore still need this, especially games. Unlike consoles prior to Xbox One and PS4, PCs mainly use x86-64 processors, which is why legacy gaming is one of the biggest selling point of PC gaming.
Until we have a plug-and-play solution that allows i386 emulation without going to the terminal to set it up (kinda like what Xbox is doing to play Xbox 360 games (PowerPC) on Xbox One (x86)), those 32-bit libraries are necessary.
Though I think it’s time for them to retire most of the i386 packages that aren’t needed to exist in the repo (i.e. Firefox, Plasma, VLC, Nano, etc.)
@YamiYukiSenpai ,You mentioned “PC Gaming” PC meaning Windows PC. Xbox etc, I think are owned by MS. They’d still run those 32bit software until, it stops bringing in profit. But, the 32 bit is getting retired, and one day would go way just as 8bit and 16 bit did.
I know, for a gamer, it is hard, but 32bit is dying, and Ubuntu doesn’t have time. You know, I don’t throw words into the wind. There’s no one to do the testing for 32 bit. Maybe the community, if they can, take the burden away. But, demanding Ubuntu to do that is not correct, I believe.
You’re misinformed. 8-bit and 16-bit died because the hardware was old and future devices were not backwards compatible. x86_64 (64-bit) allows for running x86 (32-bit) software, extending the life of x86 software long beyond the original creation.
Please don’t conflate the term “PC” to “Windows / Xbox”. It’s not helpful to intentional mislead. A PC is a piece of hardware running an OS. It may be that many use Windows, but enough of us run Linux to make a dent.
While you may believe that 32-bit is dying, a considerable library of 32-bit software is available for users to purchase and use. That software is popular and widely installed. While new software may well be mostly 64-bit capable, the 32-bit software didn’t just disappear. Users need and love that software and want to continue using it.
While there are fewer people contributing to 32-bit software, and fewer community members contributing to maintaining and testing that software directly, that doesn’t mean we should all throw away our 32-bit software.
I disagree, users problems are problems for the platform.
That won’t happen, that is not how game developers work, and many games are now orphans, and simply can’t be rebuilt. Also Ubuntu is big on the Linux space, but Linux is “nothing” on the gaming space.
Unfortunately reality proves otherwise.
Ubuntu can still continue to move on with 64bits anyway.
My 1st “PC” was a 286 with a 20MB hard disk, so sort of know how that happened. Before that there were an Atari and a Commodore. I also had a chance to “play” with a Sinclair, but never owned it. I don’t think a 128bit PC would happen in my time. I am pretty glad that there are 64bit ones around.
Sure, I do, and it’d happen in my lifetime.
If they are Linux ones, no problem at all. But if they are those Windows ones, absolutely useless for Linux distros – Linux distros are not created to promote Windows apps. And, if they are games, the gamers would play games in any platform, are loyal to a game, but not to the platform – I’ve two in the family, and they are 30+.
Anyway, I’d prefer Ubuntu to concentrate on 64bit OS and software, rather than wasting resources on 32bit. That way, I just might see a 128bit Ubuntu in my lifetime.
We aren’t even close to needing 128-bit CPUs, and we won’t be for any human length of time. At the risk of sounding a bit too “128K is enough for anybody”, we’re just barely using the current 64-bit architectures to their full potential.
The biggest change that increased bitness brings for end-users is address space. In 32 bits, we can store 4.2 gigabytes worth of addresses. In 64-bit, we get 16 exabytes. With 128-bits, we end up with something around 10³⁶ bytes, which is large enough there isn’t even a metric prefix to describe it.
More bits does not mean something is better and there are consequences to increasing bitness where we don’t have to.
Since much of the discussion in this thread is based upon the 18 June announcement,
and since that announcement has been superseded by the 24 June update and newer discussion thread,
I’m going to end this thread here to avoid confusion.
There are several interesting side-discussions going on, and several important issues raised that still seem important - those who wish to continue to develop those conversations, PM me and I’ll happily migrate those posts to a new thread.