Popular gaming digital distribution platform Steam will drop support for Ubuntu due to Canonical’s announcement of planning to discontinue 32-bit compatibility, making Valve look for another Unix-based OS.
Last week, Canonical announced it will ditch 32-bit compatibility for its upcoming Ubuntu 19.10. Without 32-bit compatibility, apps that depend on 32-bit libraries simply will not work. The removal of 32-bit libraries would affect all 32-bit games distributed by Steam.
Ubuntu 19.10 and future releases will not be officially supported by Steam or recommended to our users. We will evaluate ways to minimize breakage for existing users, but will also switch our focus to a different distribution, currently TBD.
— Pierre-Loup Griffais (@Plagman2) June 22, 2019
However, public opinion led to a backlash that made Canonical publish a post earlier today. According to Canonical, “we will change our plan and build selected 32-bit i386 packages for Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04 LTS.”
“We will put in place a community process to determine which 32-bit packages are needed to support legacy software, and can add to that list post-release if we miss something that is needed,” the post continues.
As far as gaming goes, Canonical said: “We will also work with the WINE, Ubuntu Studio and gaming communities to use container technology to address the ultimate end of life of 32-bit libraries; it should stay possible to run old applications on newer versions of Ubuntu.”
Will this be enough to convince Valve to continue supporting Steam on Ubuntu? Stay tuned.
[Sources]: @Plagman2 (Twitter): Ubuntu 19.10 and future releases will not be officially supported by Steam or recommended to our users. Canonical: Statement on 32-bit i386 packages for Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04 LTS.
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