Valve dropping official Ubuntu support

ChadD

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So it seems Ubuntu moving away from 32bit is going to mean no more (ubuntu) recommendations from Steam and Valve.

Would be nice to know more about their long term plans.

Personaly I would love to see them start paying some Solus developers... and put some of their own people on it.

SteamOS is fine but they are still reliant on Debian. IMO Solus is rip for a friendly Valve invasion. Its fast, its stable... it already works extremely well with Steam. Its just old enough and well known enough to save Vavle a ton of work... and its just small enough and indepent enough that for the investment of paying 2 or 3 of the top Solus developers and shifting their Ubuntu work their way... Valve could end up with a worth SteamOS replacement that can also function as a complete desktop solution.

Anyway interesting go ons. I doubt they abandon Linux (and as Pierre says they are looking at moving to a new official distro)... no matter what something interesting will come of this news.
 
I'm all for killing 32bit on the desktop, except you can't do that on Linux without breaking a lot of stuff...

And honestly I'd like to see Valve team up with say Fedora. You can get that rolling release feature introduction that Ubuntu lacks while still sitting on a nice stability schedule and supporting both new and old hardware.

In any case, I'd like to see 'Steam' spins similar to what PopOS does, just closer to the mainline releases. Give me Fedora Steam.
 
Remember, this isn't about 32bit platform support, but 32bit program support by removing the support libraries. It's a bad move for now. Wine's just not ready for full-tilt 64bit only.... maybe in 5-10 years.

And there are other things that still may rely on 32bit library support. I for one, love to play the native port of UT2004 (don't laugh). That will break. Along with a lot of other games from the past (Descent 3, Doom - the new one, not the new new one, the new one after the old one... sheesh ID..., Quakes, etc...)

It's like Ubuntu is saying, "I know how we can make sure Linux will never win the desktop"
 
Remember, this isn't about 32bit platform support, but 32bit program support by removing the support libraries. It's a bad move for now. Wine's just not ready for full-tilt 64bit only.... maybe in 5-10 years.

And there are other things that still may rely on 32bit library support. I for one, love to play the native port of UT2004 (don't laugh). That will break. Along with a lot of other games from the past (Descent 3, Doom - the new one, not the new new one, the new one after the old one... sheesh ID..., Quakes, etc...)

It's like Ubuntu is saying, "I know how we can make sure Linux will never win the desktop"

I guess all that MS money carries some weight. ;)

I think I'm kidding... mabey I'm not sure.

It does seem odd to remove all the support libraries. I get killing 32bit OS builds... but why remove the 32 bit libraries. 64 Bit software doesn't care if they are on a system or not. One thing I like about Linux is that I am able to run basically any software regardless of how ancient it is. As bad as this is for Steam its even worse for all the golden oldies you can pick up from GOG for instance.

Really this valve change won't change things for anyone using Steam today. (accept I guess for Ubuntu users looking to upgrade to the latest... even then I guess they can flatpak) However a recommended distro tag on the bottom of every Linux port on steam can be a pretty big push for a distro. So I hope valve chooses wisely over the next year or two a lot of win7 users are likely to consider and perhaps give Linux a shot at least on a weekend. So whatever they are recommending better install smooth and provide a slick new user experience.

That is why I'm not sure I'm on board with Fedora or even Suse. Both are great distros but both also require new users to install lots of stuff that isn't "free" per say. That is why I really hope they grab a distro like solus that is only a few years old... and has ZERO upstream issues with large old projects like debian ect. It wouldn't take much work or money on Valves behalf to take a distro like that and put an even shinyier polish on it. No more based on X or Y LTS files as blessed by the Debian or Ubuntu kids. Valve could very easily higher a few of the Solus devs... perhaps even try and hire Ikey (it sounds like he is back at Intel). A valve recommended distro that is unique and where the folks running the ship have Valve on speed dial could be very cool. And much more attractive then pushing Crap Ubuntu on new users. (ok sorry Ubuntu guys I didn't say that move along lol)

Also I think average end users expect their operating systems to be rolling. No one wants to be installing new versions all the time. Solus being a curated rolling type release could make it even more attractive to new users. (my opinion)
 
That is why I'm not sure I'm on board with Fedora o even Suse. Both are great distros but both also require new users to install lots of stuff that isn't "free" per say.

While there are some possibilities that you have a "working" system with all GNU GPL software (I say that, because Fedora and openSUSE default to FOSS software, so obviously the problem is pure GPL one for you), there's a ton of "things" that are important to people that still involve "closed" firmwares and/or drivers. It's a lot harder than you think to have a usable desktop that is sans closed stuff today.
 
This is a bone headed by Canonical. I honestly see them back tracking after Valve bailed on them. There's no good reason to not have the multilib stuff there. Like ChadD said a 64 bit system doesn't care.

Those libraries are only used when called on. They don't interfer with anything. So just leave them or better yet make them optional like Arch does. When you build Arch you have modify the pacman.conf file and uncomment the multilib stuff to access it.

Best of both worlds.
 
This is a bone headed by Canonical. I honestly see them back tracking after Valve bailed on them. There's no good reason to not have the multilib stuff there. Like ChadD said a 64 bit system doesn't care.

Those libraries are only used when called on. They don't interfer with anything. So just leave them or better yet make them optional like Arch does. When you build Arch you have modify the pacman.conf file and uncomment the multilib stuff to access it.

Best of both worlds.

So? Install Ubuntu, add the repository and re add the multilib stuff, no big deal. If you cannot re add it after the fact, sounds like a Linux issue, at that point.
 
So? Install Ubuntu, add the repository and re add the multilib stuff, no big deal. If you cannot re add it after the fact, sounds like a Linux issue, at that point.

No its a unique to Ubuntu issue... their suggested solution is to use the LTS 32 bit libs which has support until 2023. That is however security support. No doubt over time the 64bit and 32bit libarires will become further and futher removed from each other version wise. Developers have already said this solution is not a good one.

The issue for Valve is the entire point of pointing to Ubuntu was for developers as much as end users. It was saying these are the base Libs to target. With Ubuntu choosing to not just stop updates for 32bit libs but to remove them from future base installs, it makes for a nightmare. Telling people steam support requires (ubuntu xxx or equivlent) and having it not work out of the box is no bueno.

At the end of the day Ubuntu will either back track... or Valve will annoint Fedora or Suse as the new Linux development target. Or perhaps a dark horse like Solus or Arch. I honestly can't see arch being the go to... it would be a nightmare for end users. (and manjaro is still tied a bit to closely to arch imo to be a good aim that base of libs) And even in terms of developers... a smaller game studio using unity or something mainly on windows, arch may be a bit much to ask them to install, and the arch people are NOT making a easy to use auto installer ever. lol

Fedora Suse or Debian proper are the best bets I'm sure. Personaly I hope they pick Solus. Its a promising distro that has been floundering a bit. Its not based on anything from the 15+ year commercial big distros.... the team is small enough that Valve could slip a few of their employees onto the development team, or just right up hire their entire team. Hire 2-3 of the main guys, and give a bit of contract works to the other majors. It would be an inexpensive way to build out SteamOS 2.0 as a fully functioning desktop OS with up front steam integration. It is a long shot... but I think it would make sense. Why argue with a company that has no real financial incentive to do anything for you when you can just lift up a smaller independent distro.
 
I think Canonical could only pull this off if they worked heavily with Valve to successfully containerize Steam on Ubuntu. (like no complaints on the user experience, no terminal-fu, fully baked solution) However, in light of the tone of the tweets, it doesn't sound like that happened, and/or Canonicals timeline is too aggressive and/or the technology isn't fully baked.
I can see Canonical's desire to get this move implemented before an LTS release, but that really doesn't give things a lot of time to cook and be tested.

In short, unless there's some heavy Snap push and announcement of "easy mode" tooling to build them from existing software, then I'd expect them to reverse course, say "F the desktop, cloud servers are our money", or stumble heavily in the next release.
 
No its a unique to Ubuntu issue... their suggested solution is to use the LTS 32 bit libs which has support until 2023. That is however security support. No doubt over time the 64bit and 32bit libarires will become further and futher removed from each other version wise. Developers have already said this solution is not a good one.

I'm still on 16.04 as I see no reason to upgrade and that has Standard support until 2021, which is more than just security updates, it's whatever updates LTS requires/needs.
 
And honestly I'd like to see Valve team up with say Fedora.
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https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Steve-32-Bit-Comments

Sounds like the Ubuntu folks are spinning now.

So their solution is basically... 32 bit is still included its just locked into 2 year old versioning that is only going to get older. Even though newer 32 bit versioning is out there and used by every multilib using distro.

Their plan basically means someone running say Intel or AMD mesa drivers will be stuck on version 18.2 forever. lmao Of course experienced users will probably be able to use some form of PPAs or something to update... still, its a shit solution as a "recommended" base. Never mind gamers wanting to use the latest video cards. This change means no Radeon VII support... no Navi support... and I'm not even sure if Vega is well supported by 18.2. Gaming on Intel laptops will basically be impossible... whihc is funny as its the older titles that run best on that type of hardware. Never mind new Intel cards next year... no doubt Intel will be including 32 bit mesa bits for those to support older titles, but Ubutnu planns to still be shipping 3 or 4 year old 32 bit libs.

I can see why Valve is frustrated enough to move along.
 
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I was just getting used to a Ubuntu box. Will watch how this plays out. Maybe a new flavor to be had to handle Steam support. Or keep Steam only on Windows boxes.


It's sad, I spend most of my time on my Linux boxes. Like gaming on them too
 
As a gamer on Intel IGPs for the foreseeable future... I agree with Valve's decision. And it looks like things wouldn't be looking up for a potential 7nm Ryzen ultrabook APU either.
 
As a gamer on Intel IGPs for the foreseeable future... I agree with Valve's decision. And it looks like things wouldn't be looking up for a potential 7nm Ryzen ultrabook APU either.

Ya no doubt AMD will have the same issues.... being locked to a 2 year old version of MESA for 32 bit mode games means Intel igpus and Ryzen APUs will likely just black screen. You won't have any problems running Ubuntu as their 64 bit libraries will be upto date... just won't be able to launch games. Its possible you would be able to replace the 32 bit stack via a PPA. (and I sort of expect System76 or the Mint folks will provide one) Still its a complete shit solution for the "recommended" distro.
 
I was just getting used to a Ubuntu box. Will watch how this plays out. Maybe a new flavor to be had to handle Steam support. Or keep Steam only on Windows boxes.


It's sad, I spend most of my time on my Linux boxes. Like gaming on them too

No you know why Linux neck beard types tend to run from distros that get into bed with MS. ;)

I'm sure a PPA fix will be around... its just a PITA. Having said that. I was never a Ubuntu fan even before they got into bed with MS. I really hate how this decision is going to scare the crap out of a ton of new(ish) to Linux users. Damn canonical... always knew Valve made a poor decision holding them up. They really should have just said SteamOS is the recommendation... its not like steam hasn't worked on pretty much every distro for a few years now. No one skips buying a game because it recommeneds a slightly faster GPU then you have ect.... gamers don't really need the "use this" hand holding. Its the set back in the eyes of game developers that is the most concerning.
 
(and I sort of expect System76 or the Mint folks will provide one)

At this point, System76 might just be their best bet if they don't cuddle up to a larger house (Fedora / SUSE) or go with a newer rolling release (Manjaro / Solus). System76 has more or less done what Valve set out to do with Steam OS. Seems pretty natural to me?
 
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Im sure some community member or members will manage a 32bit PPA to provide the needed multilib while still being compatible .

Silly move, they get it for free from Debian (for now...). Just because they want to focus on the server, doesn't mean they should forsaken the desktop
 
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No you know why Linux neck beard types tend to run from distros that get into bed with MS. ;)

I'm sure a PPA fix will be around... its just a PITA. Having said that. I was never a Ubuntu fan even before they got into bed with MS. I really hate how this decision is going to scare the crap out of a ton of new(ish) to Linux users. Damn canonical... always knew Valve made a poor decision holding them up. They really should have just said SteamOS is the recommendation... its not like steam hasn't worked on pretty much every distro for a few years now. No one skips buying a game because it recommeneds a slightly faster GPU then you have ect.... gamers don't really need the "use this" hand holding. Its the set back in the eyes of game developers that is the most concerning.
That is usually the way. See how it pans out then see what the fix is. Either way, I will get what I am looking for.
 
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At this point, System76 might just be their best bet if they don't cuddle up to a larger house (Fedora / SUSE) or go with a newer rolling release (Manjaro / Solus). System76 has more or less done what Valve set out to do with Steam OS. Seems pretty natural to me?

Get system76 selling steammachines ? lmao :)
 
Get system76 selling steammachines ? lmao :)

In a sense, they already are. I don't see SteamOS or actual Steam Machines going anywhere. But a cooperative effort between Valve and System76, i.e. mutual promotion and development resources, might be beneficial for both.

Maybe start a 'Steam-certified' program for both operating systems and hardware. If System76 does it, it's not hard to see say Dell doing it on an Alienware system, or even Razer doing it.
 
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The key part is that Steam, GOG, and Wine will not work. If this happens, expect to see the people who were thinking about or early in their Linux migration just go back to Windows. Even long time Ubuntu users will be forced to find a new distro or go back to Windows.

We were getting so close to the year of desktop Linux and Canonical just shit on that idea.
 
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Please read: Ubuntu Developer Speaks Out About 32bit Support

(make sure you read the comments too)

The key part is that Steam, GOG, and Wine will not work. If this happens, expect to see the people who were thinking about or early in their Linux migration just go back to Windows. Even long time Ubuntu users will be forced to find a new distro or go back to Windows.

We were getting so close to the year of desktop Linux and Canonical just shit on that idea.

While this is a dumb move because it makes Ubuntu look bad it's not all doom and gloom as people say.

WINE and the x32 libraries cause issues anyways. That's why Ikey created the Linux Steam Integration stuff for Solus. He was cherry picking binaries to make certain games work properly via LSI. That's what Canonical is thinking as well. Snap/Flatpak can make new binaries available without them having to manage it. I can't really disagree with that mentality. I may not like it but I can't argue against it either.

Not to mention everybody screaming "OMG the end of Linux gaming" is nuts. There is no Linux gaming to really speak of. May 2019 Steam Hardware Survery - 0.84% is Linux. 23.xx% of that is Ubuntu. Do you really think Canonical cares if that crazy small number of people move to another distro? NOPE.

This is just nerds making noise because they can because they've being caused a bit of grief. In the end they'll just move to anther distro that maintains multilib and keep right on gaming.
 
Can't someone want to game and have to not worry about privacy too? Why can't it be both?

It would be nice but Linux is what it is and without adequate support from the gaming industry is will never be the equal of Windows when it comes to gaming. But for everything else, it's awesome.
 
It would be nice but Linux is what it is and without adequate support from the gaming industry is will never be the equal of Windows when it comes to gaming. But for everything else, it's awesome.

I think Valve being as invested as it is is a good start. Playing games on Steam went from being able to play a handful of titles, to not being able to play a handful of titles in a matter of a year. Valve continues to push that way and they are far and away the biggest player in the PC gaming market.
 
If gaming is that important to someone then they should have stayed with Windows.

If gaming means using Windows 10, I'll stick with Linux.

There's a thing called PPA's, they're not evil, they're not unreliable and they're already used to install graphics drivers under Ubuntu. Furthermore, you can quite easily upgrade the kernel on LTS releases. This is something that sounds scary, until you realize it's not.
 
Regardless, it's a high risk move on Ubuntu's part. IMHO, all it says is that they don't want to do "work". I see no other benefit.
 
Regardless, it's a high risk move on Ubuntu's part. IMHO, all it says is that they don't want to do "work". I see no other benefit.

They're still maintaining LTS releases and will be for some time yet.
 
They're still maintaining LTS releases and will be for some time yet.

The issue isn't security updates... and yes I get there will no doubt be a PPA to add actual up to date 32 bit libs.

The major issue imo is that PPAs will be required. Steam lists Ubuntu as their recommended Linux go to... and going forward it won't work out of the box. Its going to go from install and go... to install hunt the right PPA, update and go. Which for you and me is no big deal. But for Valve to be pointing potential Linux noobs that way. Its not cool. It also means what pointing developers to external PPA libs to target ?

Ubuntu is just another debian spin. Debian is still updating 32 bit libs. IMO its a strange decision.... I have no real idea why they need to lock them into an old version cycle. I could perhaps understand a decision to stop installing them by default... the package manager could install 32 bit libs from an optional repository when you install steam or wine. That would take care of their server clients that don't want the security hassle of 32 bit libs around, while not upsetting the apple cart. (and I haven't used Ubuntu server in ages but isn't that already the case anyway. I don't remember headless Ubuntu installing a bunch of 32 bit libs)

All in all its a good thing anyway imo. Its time for Ubuntu to focus on their server business and stop pretending to be a desktop distro. Its also time for Valve to get serious about Linux as a full desktop platform for more then just gaming. The more I think about it the more I hope they either expand steamos for real, or get heavily involved with a smaller project like Solus. The more I think about it the more I hope they do call up the main folks at solus and hire them. Seeing as I have been talking about Solus I threw it on a backup system I had around, and you know their latest release is extremely slick. Think it might even be a bit snappier then Manjaro... still doesn't have the massive software repository you get with a Arch or Debian based distro. And they have no mirrors at all which is really annoying. I installed Solus Gnome though... and its perhaps the cleanest fastest default gnome desktop install I have seen. Valve could easily turn Solus into SteamOS 2.
 
Though I've certainly seen Ubuntu "run" as a server, I for one, have never considered Ubuntu to be "server focused" at all. Just my opinion. So, at least for me, the strength of Ubuntu has always been for desktop users. I would say the same about Fedora and openSUSE. When I think "server side", I think Debian, CentOS/RHEL or SLES. Might be interesting (perhaps not in this thread) to know what people run on their "servers".
 
Though I've certainly seen Ubuntu "run" as a server, I for one, have never considered Ubuntu to be "server focused" at all. Just my opinion. So, at least for me, the strength of Ubuntu has always been for desktop users. I would say the same about Fedora and openSUSE. When I think "server side", I think Debian, CentOS/RHEL or SLES. Might be interesting (perhaps not in this thread) to know what people run on their "servers".

Server business is the only business I'm aware of them making any real money from.

Fedora and openSUSE are simply test beds that Suse and Redhat use to test packages for RHEL and SLES.

The main catch with asking companies like Canonical, Redhat, or Suse to make desktop distros... is all they really have in mind is workstations. They aren't selling data, and they aren't selling to OEMs. What reason does a company like Canonical which is a one bad year away from being gone have to try and serve average consumers... who aren't consuming anything from them ? :)

Valve on the other hand does have a very good incentive to have a solid consumer style distro. They did try a bit with steamos... but everyone here knows why that failed. Who wants to run an operating system that does NOTHING but game. It was really a stupid idea. They where asking people to basically buy a PC... and then lock out everything but games. Its not shocking it failed hard. If Valve really wants to push Linux as a viable mass consumer platform to move games... then they need to go full in and create their own distro. Google as much as we don't take chromeos serious has tried to make Linux a consumer platform. With Stadia it looks like they will be now offering a pretty complete OS for the mass (always connected) market.

On the what do people run on their servers question.
https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-linux/all/all
You can always look at what web servers are returning. Ubuntu is used by 37.9% of all the websites that use Linux. That is a big number... of which I am sure only 10% are paying customers, however they are all potential customers for sure. Ubuntu is one of the most popular server OS around. I doubt that translates to banks and such where I'm sure RHEL is king... still they have a good chunk of the market.
 
If gaming means using Windows 10, I'll stick with Linux.

There's a thing called PPA's, they're not evil, they're not unreliable and they're already used to install graphics drivers under Ubuntu. Furthermore, you can quite easily upgrade the kernel on LTS releases. This is something that sounds scary, until you realize it's not.
PPAs suck. They are marginally better than say, not being able to install your required software.
 
PPAs suck. They are marginally better than say, not being able to install your required software.

I can see them being inconvenient, even dangerous- but they also work.

What would be nice would be for PPA management to be more of a thing. But really, Snaps and Flatpaks are a better solution when available. Not the best, but certainly better.
 
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