Ubuntu will continue shipping select 32-bit packages

Last week, Canonical had made the rather controversial decision to stop supporting 32-bit packages for future releases of Ubuntu. The outcry within the community was quite strong, especially in the gaming community because of the high use of 32-bit applications.

Canonical responded to the outcry and is pushing a compromise to the issue. According to them, it is relatively easy to continue including select packages "for which there is a specific need". This seems to be specifically directed at Wine and Steam that both cannot operate correctly without 32-bit libraries.

They go on to say that the decision to drop 32-bit support has been in discussion since as far back as 2014 and they even directly consulted with Valve. Considering Valve's reaction last week this seems a little strange. Communication on this issue clearly could have been handled much better.

It's nice to see that Canonical is still considering the needs of Desktop users. Ubuntu will be a lot of people's first experience with Linux and a smooth experience is important for those users.

[Source: ubuntu.com]