Ubuntu says i386 to be 86'd with Eoan 19.10 release: Ageing 32-bit x86 support will be ex-86 Ubuntu is set to drop support for the i386 processor architecture beginning with its next release. Canonical, developer of the iconic Linux distro, said on Tuesday the 19.10 release, code named Eoan Ermine, will drop 32-bit i386 from its supported architectures, which include 64-bit AMD64 (x86-64) and 64-bit Armv8. "The …
Linux had the first 64-bit OS, and as I wasn't using it then, I suppose I had 34-bit systems: however I barely remember them and as soon as I first installed Opensuse I used 64-bit. Not wanting to go back to the computers of 20 years ago, I can't see the point of running a 32-bit machine now.
Nope, the op clearly states:
"Not wanting to go back to the computers of 20 years ago, I can't see the point of running a 32-bit machine now."
Doesn't mention architecture. Irrespective of the platform, there are many good reasons to use a 32bit OS and simply put there is a point of running a 32bit machine and isn't as antiquated as the OP suggests.
I can't see the point of running a 32-bit machine now
That's nice, isn't it?
In the real world there will continue to be lots of 32-bit systems for many years to come, because in some situations the particular architecture is the best tool for the job. Why should microcontrollers (8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit) be forced to switch to 64-bit?
Removing support for i386 is less about the number of bits than about how memory is managed.
I dug out a pi-zero I hadn't run in a while and upgraded it. Seems to run a lot faster than it did. I was brought up on machines that were not very responsive and find you work a lot better when you have moments to think between actions. The path of least resistance is not necessarily the best.
32 bit has a long long way to go yet! Pleased Ubuntu is getting out of the way TBH.
@Charlie Clark: This announcement has nothing to do with microcontrollers, so that isn't an issue.
Also, this new announcement is about the desktop version only, which is not what I would refer to as an "embedded" OS. The server version already dropped 32 bit x86 and nobody was really bothered by it.
... five i386 laptops and two i386 netbooks ...
Indeed ...
I have an Asus 1000HE running Devuan ASCII which I use when working away from my office/home.
For the last 10 years (yes, 10) it has proved to be quite reliable and fit for what I have needed to do.
Just last week I got a crapped out one with a perfect screen and plastics for a tenner, changed the bottom casing which was in need of refurbishing and have the screen, keyboard and assorted bits as eventual replacements should the need arise.
It will probably last me a good while yet.
Don't need 64 bit stuff for what I do.
Thank the gods for Devuan et al.
O.
I too have a literally a ton of rugged mil-spec IP-68 laptops and tablets (all 32-bit) which need a 32-bit OS which are used for GPS routing/navigation, household control, industrial CNC/3D printing control and other special tasks I have assigned to these CHEAP super-ruggedized mil-spec machines (sometimes for $100 or less! --- They were $4000 to $15,000+ US when NEW!).
I usually compile custom versions of the Linux OS'es with specific in-kernel hardware-specific drivers and they work as FAST as my full 64-bit and full 128-bit desktop super-workstations! The KEY is including the driver code INTO the kernel itself and ensuring that a FAIL-GRACEFUL Exception-Trapping code block is inserted within the driver code blocks that causes a dump current RAM memory and file contents dump to a log file and SAVE-data file to be done before hardware is shut down GRACEFULLY for safety reasons!
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For a few thousands-of dollars, I have systems that were once a few million dollars worth of PRIME-QUALITY full mil-spec IP-68/810-F/G rated computing systems doing heavy duty computing 24/7/365 without a hitch for over a decade now! I can even use fast SSD drives with them by using SATA/IDE/E-IDE cable converters, custom BIOS updates, and with lots of spare parts and quarterly maintenance, I can keep these systems running for a few more DECADES because they are so ruggedly built in the first place!
It's GREAT that I can do this with older 32-bit 386/486/Athlon/MC68040/MIPS/IBM Power systems!
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I've got older INDUSTRIAL-quality and Mil-Spec workstations and servers doing ALL SORTS of work for me!
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Why would I get rid of them when they are work fine and do what I want them to do?
Why? Because 64 bit is prima facia twice as good as 32 bit. OTOH, I suppose you could hold out for 128 bit CPUs before you shuffle off to our glorious digital future.
I've heard rumors that 32 bit logic is a bit underpowered for supporting the telemetry needs of modern software. What'll you do if Google, Microsoft et al decide that spying on you isn't worth the effort? Are you prepared to be the only kid on the block whose digital profile is way out of date? What'll you do without ads tailored to your needs and desires?
I have five i386 laptops and two i386 netbooks in regular use. Why would I get rid of them when they are work fine and do what I want them to do?
Unless these were made before the mid two thousands or have first generation Atoms, then what you have is seven amd64 processors not running in long mode. Unless you're severely memory-starved, upgrading to the 64-bit version of your OS/distro is a good idea at this point.
"Unless these were made before the mid two thousands"
Several of mine were. They still do perfectly good work. Why would I throw them away? Would you throw away your great grandfather's handmade woodworking planes just because you purchased a power planer and/or jointer? Or would you keep them, and put them to use in places where they still do a damn fine job?
Would you throw away your great grandfather's handmade woodworking planes just because you purchased a power planer and/or jointer?
Not exactly the same thing as an OS that isn't likely to be doing as good a job now is it?
I guess you never patch your machines but just get a new one instead?
(And, like duh, of course I use both hand and power tools where needed or enjoyable. Sometimes I take the skill saw or the table saw to the firewood, sometimes the axe is more appropriate...)
"Not exactly the same thing as an OS that isn't likely to be doing as good a job now is it?"
Good job according to who? I still make money with a PDP-10 running TOPS-20 (or TOPS-10, occasionally). My Bridgeport CNC runs PC-DOS 3.26b (looks just like MS-DOS 3.3) when it's not running Linux. I just fixed my Vet's blood machine, It's an Idexx "Vettest 8008"and runs a version of FreeDOS that is over 20 years old. Each of these tools does exactly the job it was designed to do, and "updating" the OS would break it. Would that be progress?
Dude, you're the one that suggested the OS wasn't doing a good job, and further suggested that instead of patching I probably purchased new equipment. I provided a couple examples that were neither patched nor new and still in use, and asked for a qualification. Who is it that has comprehension issues? Have you ever heard the term "projection"?
But thanks for the ad hominum. And for tarring 330,000,000ish people with the same brush. I think that explains your actual problem. Good bye.
Dude, you're the one that suggested the OS wasn't doing a good job
Those with very basic English comprehension skills would realise that you equated throwing out perfectly working tools that had "family heirloom" status with most people using a 32 bit OS where the world has generally moved on.
But thanks for the ad hominum. And for tarring 330,000,000ish people with the same brush. I think that explains your actual problem.
You who has often resorted to ad hominem (I assume that's the word you meant?) attacks on others, especially when they're sick of your bull and call you on it.. Getting a bit hypocritical there ain't ya?
But hey, if the shoe fits 'n all.. The rest of the world wouldn't hate your nation so much if you actually acted like decent people instead of scared little bullies all the time y'know. You do have it in you to be decent people, but you resort to being selfish thugs too readily.
Have you ever heard the term "projection"?
Any one who's ever read your posts is probably well familiar with it.... :)
Is the mess Intel made with their atoms. There are quite a lot of tablets out there with 32 bit bios/uefi. Not to speak of the last breed of netbooks that had their 64 bit instruction set disabled. I still have one of those and it is still useful for some lightweight tasks using xubuntu.
Running closed-source 32bit games (of which there are many) often requires the use of 32bit libraries. For instance, steam for linux is currently 32bit only and brings in a lot of 32bit dependencies needed by both the client and the games. Ditto many of the linux games from GOG also need 32bit libs to run.
Presumably ubuntu are happy with this but it sounds like a big two fingers up at the people who game on linux... ditto anyone else who's using a 32bit program with no hope of a 64bit version - no more SMAC under wine for instance, unless you follow ubuntu's so-called "solution" of maintaining your own 32bit libraries and re-packaging all of your old games and applications as a snap build.
I had a Samsung ATIV windows tablet with Atom processor. It was fine for taking notes in OneNote in meetings and Outlook + Word or Excel (but not both at the same time) and connecting to the terminal server with RDP.
It was also okay for playing Store games, like Solitaire, Mahjong etc. and simple web browsing.
Obviously it wasn't a power house for large Excel worksheets, complex Photoshop editing, development etc. but for note taking and basic back-office work it was fine.
The Atoms were deliberately crippled in the amount of memory they were allowed to use. It was a strategic product from Intel to see off competition in cheaper devices and, while it worked with NetBooks, it largely backfired with tablets because ARM dominates Android.
>The Atoms were deliberately crippled...and, while it worked with NetBooks
I think that this was a contributory factor (along with their relatively high power consumption and thus short battery life) in why people then chose ARM for their (then) new non-Windows (ie. Android) device offerings. And why the public accepted non-Intel cpu'd devices.
You don't need a 32 bit OS for those atoms any more. We put all the bits together to allow a 64 bit OS with a 32 bit UEFI boot loader to run on them a few years back. Any recent Fedora x86-64 image should install on them fine out of the box, though I don't have one myself any more so I can't check for sure. Dunno if other distros set this up or not off the top of my head.
Isn't Linux Mint mostly a reskin of Ubuntu? Yes I know they do some of their own apps, but overall I thought they were reliant on the Ubuntu ecosystem, certainly was when I used to use it.
Unless they're planning to maintain all their own i386 packages from now on, moving to Mint doesn't seem like very good long term advice.
Unless they're planning to maintain all their own i386 packages from now on, moving to Mint doesn't seem like very good long term advice.
There is LMDE - the D being Debian...
(Now if only they'd do a Mint Devuan - the Mint polish but the NOT SYSTEMD! of Devuan... :) )
The current Ubuntu LTS is supported until 2023. What the recent decision is about is not locking themselves into a situation where they have to offer support past 2023 when third party application developers they rely upon are already dropping support today.
to be a Debian test machine :) There are 32 bit atom machines - but the 32 bit only machines are mostly 10 years old. 32 bit EFI and 64 bit userland is well supported on the 64 bit machines. The multiarch system will allow you to run 32 bits on 64 bit machines in general. Debian hasn't yet made this decision IIRC but look at the architectures supported post Buster (Debian 10)
>There are 32 bit atom machines - but the 32 bit only machines are mostly 10 years old.
I think this is the real issue, pure 32-bit desktop systems are legacy as the chip vendors aren't advertising x86 32-bit chips on 7nm. I'm uncertain if you can run a current generation i3/5/7 in 32-bit mode.
Looking across the aray of consumer devices, which are running some variant of iOS/MacOS, Windows, Linux/Android, it does seem 64-bit is the standard. So if you are serving this market it does seem to be a waste of resource continuing to support 32-bit architectures.
I supoose one benefit is that if you really want a 32-bit OS then your choices moving forward are: ArcaOS and ReactOS.
*Looks at every machine under his control*
*Fails to spot a single machine running 32-bit OS*
32-bit apps, sure, for backward compatibility. But 32-bit OS? Come on... the first machine that you ever used 4Gb on you should have realised. My minimum spec for *office workstations* (the least-heavily-used of all the computers I've ever deployed) is 8Gb. Whether or not you're playing tricks to access that remaining RAM, you should know that it was the end of the line, and the only excuse to continue was if you were upgrading the hardware of a machine that had started out 32-bit.
But if you haven't rebuilt or reimaged your machines in... what... 10 years or more? (And that was just Windows 7... let alone all the predecessors which had 64-bit support of some kind back to XP at least) What the hell are you thinking?
You can't even virtualise properly on a 32-bit OS, not really, and Windows Server has been 64-bit only for a while now. Those hints were all there. They've been there for a decade or more. Are people seriously buying new machines and installing 32-bit OS on them? Honestly? Where's your common sense? I can forgive not jumping into the "first-day-bandwagon" but come on!
I met resistance 5 years ago when I deployed this network (64-bit on every machine since day one, even the 5+ year old recon machines that they were using at the time) and I found that unbelievable - they honestly thought that 32-bit Office wouldn't work on 64-bit Windows (at the time, it was actually *recommended* to do that as 64-bit Office wasn't quite there!). I ignored them, deployed it site-wide, nobody has ever had any related issue whatsoever. I found it incredibly backwards to even be having that argument at that point, let alone now.
And Linux was *way* ahead of the game 64-bit wise. And had much better 32/64 mixed app support from day one. The last 32-bit only processor that Intel made were the Atom in 2010 and the Core Duo (not Core 2, which was 64-bit!) in 2006. That's literally the LAST THING that you *had* to run 32-bit OS on, let alone the last mainstream thing that you should have been buying to deploy anything serious on which would have been years earlier.
This is why security fixes are never deployed - people are still running OS that don't have support for the last 10+ years of processor instructions (and, no, 32-bit did not save you from Spectre or Meltdown neither!) including memory protection, virtualisation, etc. etc.
"The last 32-bit only processor that Intel made were the Atom in 2010 and the Core Duo (not Core 2, which was 64-bit!) in 2006. That's literally the LAST THING that you *had* to run 32-bit OS on"
Intel's embedded 32-bit, x86 compatible Quark processors were released about 5 years ago and still for sale.
Intel's embedded 32-bit, x86 compatible Quark processors were released about 5 years ago and still for sale.
Nope, they were recently discontinued: https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/01/25/intel-quark-discontinued/
The page says that Intel has announced a future date for discontinuation, but Intel is still providing these chips for the next 3 years.
Of course, users of these low power chips are probably more interested in running something less demanding than an Ubuntu distro...
Totally missed the point, methinks. There are those of us still 'out there' without the resources to scrap 10 year-old machines simply because they can't run a 64 bit OS. Yes, I have an Atom 32-bit only netbook, yes I have a 32-bit Core Duo Mac (abandoned by Apple /years/ ago), yes I still have 32-bit Pentium systems in heavy use at work. They are replaced only when hardware failure makes it economic to do so. The software they run gains no benefit at all from more modern processor, and some of it (specific device drivers - don't ask) cannot actually run on anything more modern than 32-bit Windows XP (airgapped).
Since replacement doesn't simply mean swapping in a more modern processor and inatalling a more modern OS, but means going back to the originating companies (some of which don't exist any more) and getting them to re-write a whole host of proprietary interdependent software, my boss's attitude is 'keep it going as long as you can'.
At least in Linux-land there is still some choice, and the netbook is running MX, though it has recently developed a stuck Tab key so it might soon have to retire...
M.
There are those of us still 'out there' without the resources to scrap 10 year-old machines simply because they can't run a 64 bit OS.
I'm probably one of the poorest people on here. I paid $NZ15 for this Dell D630 laptop (and used a HDD gifted by someone else). 64 bit all the way.
Where it comes to factory and medical equipment - are they going to be running the latest Ubuntu? Or are you going to be getting other stuff to run.
OOI, do any of these who are against Ubuntu doing this actually helping to fund anyone's efforts to keep 32bit general-public OS's going?
I'm not a fan of Ubuntu, and have moved away from them and their derivatives as well as abandoning Debian as well - now using Devuan (as I seem to mention eveyr other post these days :( ) I don't support much of what they do, but I have to say it - it's their toy and if they want to pick it up and take it home, that's their choice. If you want a say, pay. Support them to keep a 32 bit version alive for the sake of the very very small few people who might actually want to use it.
(For the most part, 32 vs 64 is not an issue - however I do sometimes get image or video files > 2gb that I really want to be able to keep on my own cloud server, so that has to be 64 bit due to a Python (IIRC) limitation where it would not handle larger files on 32bit (no idea why)
I take it from this that part of your job has been to scour ebay etc. and buy up a stock of suitable spare hardware.
We have enough stock for the next couple of years but yes, it's definitely becoming difficult to find hardware (motherboards) with drivers capable of installation in Windows XP. My colleagues and I have been pointing this out for quite some years now but as the "big boss" is only a few years off retirement the received wisdom is that he doesn't want to set any big projects in motion right now. And there's no money anyway. There never was a "capital replacement" budget, the group simply doesn't have the resources until someone decides to put another Lottery Heritage Fund application together.
We do what we can and we realise that our line of work is not exactly earth-shattering in the grand scheme of things. People won't die if something breaks and can't be replaced instantly.
M.
I literally throw out better hardware than you're describing, and often have to pay people to take it away - IT charities won't take small amounts of stuff that old.
When I'm throwing out things superior to stuff you can't afford to replace, you need to go dumpster-diving a bit more.
Five years ago I threw out then-five-year-old machines that were 64-bit capable (but motherboard limited to 4Gb by the BIOS, weirdly, but perfectly capable of using 64-bit Windows 7/8.1/10 as we do still have some lying around). The ones I couldn't get rid of, I put an SSD in to at least give them a fighting chance at running Chrome.
But despite ditching machines all year round, I literally don't throw out enough volume for anyone to think it worth their while to collect, reuse or recycle. Even our staff don't want them, because they are "too old". And that's the desktops. The laptops are just straight in the bin because of battery life usually.
If you're struggling to acquire 64-bit hardware, honestly, just jump on freecycle or equivalent in your area.
I literally throw out better hardware than you're describing...
...If you're struggling to acquire 64-bit hardware
No, you've missed the point again.
Firstly, I am not struggling to acquire the hardware. At work it is the software. We have proven that some of the software we use - bespoke software for our application or drivers for very specific hardware and acquired before I became part of the organisation - simply will not run under anything newer than Win XP. Yes, we could replace the guts of a machine for perhaps £300, but then we'd need to spend ten times that or more to have the software re-written and possibly also replace the specialist hardware.
Secondly, if the machine is still capable of performing the job it was bought to do it is almost criminally wasteful to scrap it simply because it's a few years old. Machines whose only crime is a 4GB RAM limit? Absolutely perfectly sufficient for a recent OS and all the normal "productivity" apps. Grief, at home I have an AMD A8 multi-user machine where three or four people might share by "switch user" and all of them using Libre Office, Firefox and possibly other things. It has 120GB of SSD and until recently 4GB of RAM and was mostly fine. It now has 8GB which does make things a bit easier (no sudden swapfile use) when someone is playing 0ad and pauses it when someone else needs to print homework. It's running OpenSuse. I dare say Windows 7 would cope in the same circumstances, not sure about W10 but probably.
Laptops being chucked because of batteries? Oh come on! Leaving aside the fact that 90% of laptops spend 90% of their time plugged in (totally made up statistic, but please try to prove me wrong), batteries are (usually) not expensive nor difficult to replace unless you've bought a "designer" machine which is glued together. Even those machines which don't have a user-removable battery often come apart with the application of a small screwdriver, something that an idle sixth-former would be more than happy to do for you I'm sure.
Note that I'm not trying to do a downer on Ubuntu. I think that what they have done to bring "Linux to the masses" has had hugely beneficial knock-on results for the whole ecosystem. I fully realise that 32-bit only has been "niche" for some years now and will only (on the desktop) become more so. There are alternatives.
My "downer" is against those people with the attitude that says "move with the times!", "five years is old enough for a computer!", "if you don't like it, tough". Not everyone has the kind of budget you seem to have.
M.
"Hardware which will only run a 32-bit operating system is getting pretty rare these days and is unlikely to have enough resources to run the latest release of Ubuntu Desktop,"
Thus admitting that all this fiddling with desktop styles and features is bloating the systems and their hardware requirements. But to what end? They're all at it, though: so much fiddling around and I still think Windows 7 pretty much had it nailed.
"Most of the 32 bit desktop hardware which is still out there now would be things like netbooks with only one or two gigabytes of RAM. You could probably still run a Gnome desktop (which is what Ubuntu desktop ships with), but it would be sub-optimal."
I'm running Linux MInt on an Asus Netbook with 1GB of RAM. I swapped out the spinning disk for an SSD. It's fine for web browsing, LibreOffice, email etc. It originally ran Win7 but regularly thrashed thr swap file. With Linux and an SSD, swap usage is low and barely noticeable when it does happen. I did try installing Win7 on the SSD just for comparison. It was more nippy than with the spinning disk, but with only 1GB of ram, Win7 is thrashing the swap file before it's even finished loading up the bare OS!
Yes, really. If you want to run some forms of DOS or 16-bit Windows emulation then the move from 32-bit OS to 64-bit OS drops access to the VM86 instruction and that has various implications. same reason why Windows dropped 16-bit support when going 64-bit as the ntvdm relied on it.
Now before you start saying "who on Earth programs with 16-bit code?" remember there are a lot of bespoke and industrial control applications that use this because it was written donkey's years ago and still works. Any replacement then has a whole lot of time, cost and testing/debugging to bring you back to exactly where you started. But without 16-bit instructions and with a fancier GUI. That gets broken by the next round of OS/desktop code paradigm changes...
>Now before you start saying "who on Earth programs with 16-bit code?" remember there are a lot of bespoke and industrial control applications that use this because it was written donkey's years ago and still works.
Back in the 80's & 90's there were "real" OS's for these applications, but MS decided they wanted a slice of this action and dreamt up WinCE etc.
So this retreat of the general purpose OS vendors potentially reopens this market to specialist vendors, who are prepared to commit to 20+ years of support...
To fork the OS and separate the 32 & 64 bit architecture leaving an LTS branch for 32 bit. I don't see 32 bit going away, niche use cases they may be becoming, but lots of it out their.
I imagine it is getting increasingly complex trying to bind too many architectures into one place, as the behaviours are increasingly divergent.
Are the dropping support for 32bit or i386? The article uses these terms interchangeably yet they are not the same thing. I didn’t realise i386 was still supported as an option for 32bit systems in Ubuntu anyway and doubt most people would notice it going. More modern 32bit certainly would raise questions.
That's my point. Traditionally we had various x86-32 builds targeted at varying ages of the 32 bit architecture - i386 being a particularly old but very compatible one. i686 used more modern processor features and therefore would not work on older x86-32 parts. Hence the confusion over the article. Dropping i386 would mean extremely old pentium chips were being dropped, while dropping 32 bit would mean all x86-32 parts are being dropped. It would be entirely possible to drop i386 builds and keep 32 bit, and I thought that had happened many years ago. Certainly modern Fedora didn't support my older pentium systems when I last tried.
It has been apparent for some time now that 32 bit x86 was going to be dropped. The biggest reasons have to do with two problems facing 32 bit. One is that developers of important applications have already dropped support for 32 bit. Linux distros have been building 32 versions, but the developers won't support them and the distros themselves are in no position to deal with things like security problems that affect 32 bit only.
The other problem is that most developers don't have 32 bit hardware to test on, and they're not about to spend their own money out of their own pockets on buying and maintaining 32 bit hardware for the sake of handful of people who won't but new 64 bit hardware for themselves.
From an application developer's standpoint one big advantage of dropping 32 bit support is that the SIMD situation on 64 bit x86 is much better and more consistent than on i386 (where it is an absolute nightmare). That alone can make it worthwhile making an x86 application 64 bit only.
This announcement is about the desktop version, as there currently is no 32 bit x86 server version anyway. If you are running an old 32 bit desktop, then you should probably be running the 18.04 LTS version of Ubuntu anyway, which is supported until 2023. The number of old 32 bit only x86 desktops still running past that date is probably vanishingly small as is the ability of developers to have and maintain hardware to use to support them.
I run an open source project which is supported on multiple architectures and multiple C compilers. I do test on 32 Debian along with other targets, but 32 bit Linux seems to be already an irrelevance so far as I can determine, and many distros dropped it a while ago.
32 bit Arm is still relevant of course and the Raspberry Pi is ubiquitous and very cheap, and I have one that I use for testing. However the recent Ubuntu announcement is about 32 bit x86, not Arm.
Do we really think that there are less 32-bit intel processors in use than 32-bit ARM? Strange that Canonical is removing x86.
Plus Ubuntu is "the beginner Linux", and a lot of people re-purpose slightly old (sometimes 32-bit only) hardware to learn on.
Many Linux distributions have far fewer developers and yet they manage to correctly maintain less popular architectures.
I actually take exception to this.
Yes, Ubuntu is an easy distro. to switch new Linux users to, but there are significant reasons why experienced Linux people might want to use Ubuntu as well.
I use Ubuntu LTS releases on my own personal laptop. Why? for exactly the same reasons a new Linux user might. It's stable, patched regularly, has a large amount of software already in it's repositories and PPAs, and commercial software regards Ubuntu as a suitable target to compile for. There is a large community and the official support appears to be pretty well resourced.
Although I have all the skill necessary to run a more hair-shirt distro. like Slackware or Arch, what I don't have is the time to mess around with them. I want something that works and requires minimal work to keep it running for my main workhorse (and also for my wife's laptop - a real low-skill user).
Before you ask, I will state that I am a Unix system administrator of 40+ years, and a Linux user for 20+ years, and have worked at kernel source level. I made my way through Red Hat (before RHEL and Fedora), Caldera, Mandrake, Debian and a whole host of reduced footprint Linuxes, earning my "Get XFree86, OSS and Wireless Networking working" badges in releases before support was standard. And yes, I first installed Linux using floppy disks. I stared using Ubuntu at 6.06 Dapper Drake, and have been running through the LTS releases ever since.
I will use specific Linuxes for specific tasks I have to do, but for general duties, Ubuntu will remain my preferred distro (even with systemd).
Peter, when was the last time you tried Slackware? I installed the 32-bit version of Slack 14.2 -stable on the Wife's machine (kitchen sink install) a couple years ago, and have kept it updated as necessary. The only non-stock software I had to add was LibreOffice[0]. To date, using it as a home user and SOHO, she has been perfectly happy with the result. Absolutely zero headaches, and you know what they say ... Happy Wife, happy life.
You can check out Slack's very grueling update schedule here ... and actually, the last several dozen updates, she's handled it for herself. (Running slackpkg update then slackpkg upgrade-all and answering one or two questions[1] isn't exactly rocket surgery.)
I run both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions, depending on hardware. I also see zero headaches, and there is no need to mess with anything. The days of hair shirts are behind us in the Slackware world ... IF you don't want to mess with it. On the other hand, if you DO want to mess with it, you can.
Honestly, its just install it and run it. It gets out of the way and lets us get on with our work. I actually don't think about which OS I'm running anymore, unless I'm making a post like this one. Can't ask for much more than that out of an OS.
[0] If you don't want to compile code for yourself, between Alien BOB's site (Eric Hameleers) and Slackbuilds, most of your software needs should be covered:
http://www.slackware.com/~alien/
https://www.slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/
[1] One prompting to run LILO if needed (or Grub, if you prefer) and one about updating config files, or not, and should the old version be saved (she just hits "O", allowing me to back her out gracefully if necessary, which hasn't happened yet).
One thing I used 32 bit linux for was lightweight single purpose VMs, if you are using < 4GB RAM then a 32 bit system uses a lot less resources. A number of years ago I ran some tests, I configured 2 identical bare bones Ubuntu server VMs running Apache, one 32 bit and one 64 bit. The 32bit system used 170MB RAM while the 64bit system used 270MB. So in this case the 64bit system used over 50% more ram just to accomplish the same job and I could run quite a few more 32bit VMs on the same host.
At least for the near future. See the 32-bit version of Slackware -current, which will become Slackware 15.0 "when it is ready". Change logs here.
For the record, I am running both the IA-32 and x86_64 versions of -current on several machines, and they are quite stable for me. As with anything in development, YMMV.
For a moment, I thought this meant excluding everyone who had only 2 gigabytes of RAM, but then I realized that the processor is still capable of going in to 64-bit mode, even if one chose to use 32-bit Windows to have better compatibility with oler software. If Linux has no similar compatibility problems, then this would not be an issue.
I have to wonder, because Ubuntu has been saying for years that their server variant was x64 only. If one knew where to look, though, an x86 version of Ubuntu Server was available through version 16.04 LTS. Maybe an unofficial 32-bit version of Ubuntu for the desktop will persist for a while longer.
Personally, I think it's silly to drop 32-bit x86 support this soon. I can't think of too many reasons why it couldn't be kept available for a few more years and at least one more major release. There have been general purpose (albeit low powered) 32-bit only x86 microprocessors manufactured as recently as 2012, and there are also the previously mentioned systems with 64-bit capable CPUs and only 32-bit UEFI support.
I'm definitely still using a few 32-bit only systems to do useful work. Some have practical restrictions (would see no improvement due to other design limits, like the maximum amount of memory that can be installed, or there is a need to use older software, like Win16 programs) while others cannot run 64-bit code.
Does this mean I will not have any further support for my 5¼" floppies? I have two of my bitcoin wallets (from 2009) on one!
And what about my 8-bit paper-tape reader? Thank goodness this was obsoleted before I decided to save crypto-wallets off-site!
Guess I quickly better get those wallets copied over to a good 32-bit device.
Nah- it's time to use 64 bit for even this cryptic stuff also, I suppose.
Why did my idiot geek nephew tell me to invest in bitcoin 8 years ago? BAH! I woulda been better off with FTSE or NASDAQ!
io_uring is getting more capable, and PREEMPT_RT is going mainstream The Register 
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