Do you use Steam on Ubuntu? You may have to switch to a new Linux distro in the future. A Valve developer announced that Steam won’t officially support Ubuntu 19.10 or future releases. Ubuntu-based Linux distributions are also affected.
This is all because Canonical announced plans to drop 32-bit packages and libraries from Ubuntu 19.10. These packages enable 32-bit software to run on 64-bit versions of Ubuntu.
While most Linux applications will get along just fine, this is a huge blow to Valve’s Steam. Many Linux games on Steam are only available in 32-bit form they work on 64-bit Linux distributions, but only with the 32-bit libraries. As Phoronix recently pointed out, this also affects the Wine compatibility layer that allows running Windows software on Linux Wine won’t be able to run 32-bit Windows software anymore. Steam’s compatibility layer for running Windows games on Linux would also not work for 32-bit games.
Things might improve in the long run. However, there isn’t much time when Canonical is expected to freeze feature development for 19.10 in August. Unless the Ubuntu team changes course, some Linux users might deal with headaches across their gaming libraries especially if they’re dependent on Steam.
