IT'S HAPPENING

32 bit x86 processors are not even being manufactured anymore. The only reason to support it is because windows developers are either too lazy to port their apps, or too greedy to open source them so that someone else can do the porting.
Steam really is the worst of both worlds because it's all the cluelessness and greed of devs locked into the microsoft platform, combined with the general tech incompetence of game developers. Maybe in 10-15 years they will finally compile their programs for modern computers, but I doubt it.

>instead of just finally making a 64bit version of their shitty app they'd rather "switch focus to another distribution"
Fuck Valve and fuck 32bit software.

Realistically what will happen is that somebody will just bundle the Steam launcher with 32-bit libs from Debian and put it on a snap. Probably Valve themselves if they hear about all this.

Wat? Does this mean 32-bit computers will stop working?

>Fuck old games
Nah son any game worth playing is available in 32 bit

On Unix-like systems, the 32-bit clock will overflow in 2038, making 32-bit programs think it's 1901.
It'll fuck with a lot of software, and you can basically consider 32-bit programs completely dead at that point.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

SteamOS is a thing.

didn't China just make their own 32bit x86 CPU?

Any game worth playing is free software and has already been ported to 64 bit even if it is 25 years old.

don't they do that already?

Real talk,
Since snap is a thing, why isn't anybody making an OS that's entirely composed of snap packages? For gaming that would be incredible.

try NixOS or GuixSD

wtf

The real issue here is 32bit graphics programming designs. Generate a wrapper for that and you're set, even if it comes with a performance hit.

I really hate you, user.

Oh no no what would I do without my favorite DRM?
I need those games because I'm worthless degenerate who do not value his free time after all!

>waaah I have no idea how Linux works but I've decided that Ubuntu needs to maintain a complete desktop environment for legacy architectures forever so that I can run Windows 95 games
>waaaah the 2011 instructions don't work and I don't want to follow 2019 instructions
>waaaah I don't want to have to use legacy binaries to run legacy binaries

I'm guessing they will recommend SteamOS and bundle the 32-bit and just recommend that instead of Vanilla Ubuntu.

aaaaand ubandu lost half their users

argh dropped it last year

Retarded question but will this affect older versions like ubuntu 18.04 lts?

Hopefully Debian since SteamOS is a Debian fork.

Ubuntu is also switching apt to snap soon.

A Ubuntu dev confirmed it on jupiter broadcasting.
That was their reasoning for snapping the calculator by default as a test bed.

Is there a GNOME desktop variant of Debian?

>Does this mean 32-bit computers will stop working?
no. you were replying to a wannabe journalist or suchlike who cannot distinguish between the processor working with 32-bit addresses and code featuring 32-bit data types. very old unixes will be in trouble, that's all.

>apt install wine
>dnf install wine
>dowloading steam.exe
>click, click, click, installation complete
>"Login to Steam account"
Tragedy avoided
Also
>Moved to new distro
Probably Debian or Fedora

it will probably be those 2 new linux distros gaining popularity lately. forgot the name of them.

>apt install wine
Wouldn't Wine be dead as well? I thought it relied on 32bit libs too.

Debian uses vanilla Gnome.

Ubuntu actually modifies Gnome a bit with their own theme and some presets.
You can just use Gnome Shell which is much more minimal than the whole desktop.

SteamOS actually uses their own desktop for big picture mode on top of Debian.

github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/wiki/steamcompmgr

No. They have to resolve to dirty tricks to address more memory or access to resources allocated in such a small memory space.
As memory and storage increases this is becoming more relevant and x86_64 are becoming more notoriously efficient on these processors than plain x86.

Oh sorry you're asking if a variant of Debian is built around Gnome like how Ubuntu has Xubuntu/Lubuntu ect.

Not that I know of personally but if you choose to install Debian with a desktop it's the default option unless you choose a alternative.

i reckon kubuntu will be their recc. it already comes with steam for some reson

Thanks user, I just wanna know when's a good time to make the switch. I want to get a backup system, I already have an old samsung laptop now I just need to find a battery for it and wipe it clean.

nah, debian is too conservatist

afaik steam can be installed under wine.x86_64 without trouble
The problem comes in each game as every one of them needs a different configuration
Some work out of the box, others need additional components, and others will refuse to run under a x64 profile
It can also vary from one wine release to another
This was supposed to be fixed with proton, but now this happened
Back at square one

Nah

Debian is in "freezing phase" for the past couple months while the next release is prepared.

That means everything but security patches are frozen upstream so it's a pretty good time.

Or wait till Debian 10 releases in september I think?

When ever I switch distros or reinstall I keep my /home partition and select "don't overwrite" in the installer and just reinstall on the /boot /root ect

There's always a couple of Debian users lurking Jow Forums so take your time and ask around in the linux threads.

Arch dropped 32-bit installers, not 32-bit libraries. Most games require 32-bit libraries.

>Or wait till Debian 10 releases in september I think?
Last I heard, it was less than a month away, all things going well.

No. You can stay on Ubuntu LTS until 2023. But I imagine you won't be comfortable with using such dated software for so long.

Worth the jump from Windicks to Debian or no?

God, I hope.

I imagine Debian would be a problem for them to officially recommend considering you have to edit the sources list to enable non-free software like Steam. Stuff like that scares away new users. I say that as a Debian user.

As for backups I personally just gzip -r -9 to a folder of files and move the file to a drive.
(recursively goes into every sub folder and compresses to 9 the highest gzip has)

7zip is also nice and I think it has some GUI frontends.
As for GUI programs there's also timeshift and backup-manager.

There's also borgbackup, backup-ninja which are a bit more involved.

If you wanted a dedicated device setup a NAS on the spare laptop like OpenMediaVault (debian based) XigmaNAS (bsd based) which are even more involved.

This was said like a month ago, give it 2 months to be safe.

The 2038 problem hasn't been an issue for OpenBSD for half a decade

Maybe try LMDE(mint based on debian instead of ubuntu) first with XFCE or cinnamon and see if you like the Debian style since Mint packages proprietary codecs for .mp4 and stuff.

Debian you can enable these but they have a purist stance on open source to protect the users.

If you like it anything you learn will be applicible to Debian down the road.
I've even converted a LMDE install into Debian just to see if it was possible even though it's not recommended.

If Ubuntu won't maintain 32-bit libraries then an official flavor like Kubuntu very likely won't maintain 32-bit libraries either.

>debian is too conservatist
Pic related.
And now, let me introduce you Lucy Wayland:
flickr.com/photos/aardvarkoffnord/

Attached: Screenshot_2019-06-22-09-20-34-072_acr.browser.lightning.png (720x1520, 194K)

This is understandable, honestly I would only want it for more adoption. I don't even use Steam anyway.

Steam sells games. A great number of old games are still in 32 bit. Why the fuck would they jeopardize their sales by "recommending" a Linux distro that can't run what they are selling.

It's still ubuntu you tool

lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2019/06/msg00003.html
>We plan to release on 2019-07-06.

>switch because you're too lazy to write a 64 bit client

Yes
discourse.ubuntu.com/t/i386-architecture-will-be-dropped-starting-with-eoan-ubuntu-19-10/11263/2
>Run an older release of Ubuntu which supports i386, such as 16.04 LTS or, preferably 18.04 LTS in a Virtual Machine or LXD container as above.
>Try 64-bit WINE first. Many applications will “just work”. If not use similar strategies as for 32 bit games. That is use an 18.04 LTS based Virtual Machine or LXD container that has full access to multiarch 32-bit WINE and related libraries.
>We recommend publishing applications as snaps, which can leverage the “core18” runtime which supports 32-bit via the existing Ubuntu 18.04 archive.

They would have to package their own glibc in the runtime to make most of your games work, which would likely cause problems for the host system.

>le chinese trap to force western businesses to publish their code
Nice try, Zhang.

If only glibc supported static linking...

They prob didn't expect all of those intel vulnerabilities.
That probably kept the devs busy backporting to stable.

Attached: pierre.png (861x135, 20K)

Windows doesn't have this problem.

>valve writes all the games on steam

Fedora would probably be the best with their up-to-date graphics stack and shit but their philosophy about closed source software distribution will probably not align well with valve.
>We recommend publishing applications as snaps
They can go fuck themselves.

That's good to hear!

>openbsd
They won't because they can't because openbsd has trash performance, no nvidia drivers, and security feature bloat.

Attached: openbsdtrash.jpg (918x2157, 504K)

There's this trick
github.com/wheybags/glibc_version_header
But yeah, distributing binaries on Linux is a total nightmare.

>They can go fuck themselves.
This.

...

There are like 5 open source games ever and 4 of them are straight shitty ripoffs of popular games. There is no reason for games to be free software.

Why even fucking drop 32 bit? Processors can handle it just fine.

64 bit kernels run 32 bit programs just fine. Steam already ships all the libraries the games need to run, they're already completely separate from the distro package manager. Adding a bunch of 32 bit libs to that lisn't a problem.

This is a non-issue.

UDUNGU IS FINISHED AND BANKRUPT

UDUNGUDRONES CONFIRMED ON SUICIDE WATCH

According to the Ubuntu devs, 32-bit libraries are too tiresome to maintain, but I don't understand how that is if they get their libraries from Debian.

they probably choose gentoo btw

Linux doesn't either.

It's a specific userspace of a operating system that uses Linux.
It's Ubuntu choosing not to support hardware that is already supported in the kernel and just need userspace libraries.

Once more, Windows for gaymen and Linux for everything else is the better solution.\

If you're going to be spied on by Valve, it might as well be on Windows instead of on free software.

Fuck gentoo

Tell that to ubuntu maintainers.

CPUs yet but it's extra housekeeping for the operating system. x86 is useless and the most powerful x86 is weaker than a modern pentium so it's not worth supporting them.
Fuck x86 and fuck x86 libs, it's time to make the industry kill legacy hardware and move on. Seriously if you have an x86 CPU you can't even run demanding software like a proper web browser.

>Steam already ships all the libraries the games need to run
This is wrong, see . It's the same person in both screencaps.

While x86 has been 64 bit for ages, ARM and embedded devices only recently started switching.
I'd say this is where the problem is, not kicking off 32 bit apps, which everyone seems to be doing now.

Their own steam OS uses debian.

i actually meant to write manjaro lol, no idea why i wrote kubuntu

>everyone seems to be doing now
Who else is dropping 32-bit applications besides Apple and Canonical?

Some distros like Arch dropped their "proper" 32-bit support, but still provide multilib.

>but I don't understand how that is if they get their libraries from Debian.
My sides, fucking ubuntu devs.

GAMES!!1

Attached: soyboy-2.png (210x240, 6K)

MS is dropping 32-bit, 16-bit, and MSDOS from kernel soon.

It'll prob be virtualized in a sandbox like how they do for WSL for linux.

Also D3D9/DX9

Ubuntu maintainers are irrelevant. I can make a statically linked 32 bit program and run it on a 64 bit Linux kernel. To do the same with dynamic libraries, you just need to provide the 32 bit libraries yourself. Since games need strong ABI guarantees anyway, steam already ships all the libraries itself as the steam runtime.

Ubuntu has nothing to do with it.

Calm down kiddo. The kernel can handle x86 code just fine. Nobody cares what the ubuntu distro maintainers "support".

Yea, but I said 32-bit applications. 32-bit libraries and applications still work on Arch.