Do we need 32 bit OSs anymore?

what do you use

  • 32 bit

    Votes: 4 5.7%
  • 64 bit

    Votes: 66 94.3%

  • Total voters
    70

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So your only 32-bit OS is nearly 20 years old... That has very little bearing on whether 32-bit operating systems should continue to be made, which I think is the real topic at hand.

thats the point I'm trying to make. im mean if a OS is supported to 2023 or 2099 and its 32bit then yes it should be supported. but new OSs such as Ubuntu 20.04 lets say should not have 32 bit parts. why? cause the same reason we dont need 16 bit parts.
 

ihaveahax

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32-bit will likely stay around forever. A lot of Windows software is still 32-bit only. (A lot of business software may even still be 16-bit, requiring NTVDM.) Linux distributions can drop multilib but software developers could just suggest another one that hasn't (see: Steam and Ubuntu).

In fact, the Mac is the only one to have fully gone 64-bit. macOS has required a 64-bit capable machine since 2011 with 10.7 Lion, but 10.15 Catalina will completely strip out 32-bit program support.
 
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Kwyjor

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I recently couldn't install a game I own on 64 bit Windows because the installer is 16 bit (which means it needs a 32 bit OS to run).
That is indeed an old problem at this point and there are numerous solutions available, depending on the specifics. I seem to recall that in the case of Installshield 5, it's just a matter of replacing the setup.exe with the 32-bit version, for instance.

DOSBox. I never would have thought of using that. I wonder if it's worth the trouble of figuring out how to set up DOSBox just to run one game though. I haven't had good experiences trying to get DOSBox running and doing what I want it to in the past. It's been some years now though, so I wonder if it's somewhat easier to use now.
There's this thing called BoxedWine now that is basically DOSBox running Linux running WINE. (It seems like people have always been talking about "We should run WINE under Windows!" but no one ever managed to figure out a better way of doing it.) But I doubt that's the best solution to 16-bit installer problems.
 
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bodefuceta

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I think you're confusing the OS with the DE. I agree that GNOME 3 sucks and is bloated as hell, but you have a lot of versions of Ubuntu which are the same thing, just with a different DE. I just wish they didn't drop Unity.
Of course not. I installed the Server version some time ago and that doesn't even have a DE. Had to remove a truckload of stuff because it was an old machine, a lot of stuff made it incredibly slow like snapd and some cloud ring, all Canonical bloatware. I think it had upward of a thousand packages compared to like 300 of more sane DE-less distros.
 
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So your only 32-bit OS is nearly 20 years old... That has very little bearing on whether 32-bit operating systems should continue to be made, which I think is the real topic at hand.
yeah so if that is the case i think yes they should drop 32-bit OSes
 

Psionic Roshambo

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I know in my home it wouldn't bother me, I do a lot of emulation so if I want to run an old game or something Dos box or a VM will usually do.

You can have your cake and eat it too most of the time when it comes to tech. I think Dinoh touched on the one area where there could be problems, but I imagine if someone had the $$$ to spend on a solution even then you could get around the issue.
 

AkikoKumagara

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In reality, while people make the security defense in terms of arguing for the continuation of 32-bit OS support, it's really not a good one. Anyone using a desktop, laptop, or server x86 processor that doesn't support 64-bit operating systems is inherently running an insecure machine. Those processors are insecure at a hardware level, and software can only do so much to mitigate that.

This doesn't however mean the same applies to things like ARM chips or other architectures.

Where I stand is simple: I am still entirely in favor of dropping continued support for 32-bit builds (for x86 processors) of desktop operating systems (even if it forces people to stop using dinosaurs, because they shouldn't be) BUT continuing to support 32-bit software applications in the operating systems.
 
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Minox

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thats the point I'm trying to make. im mean if a OS is supported to 2023 or 2099 and its 32bit then yes it should be supported. but new OSs such as Ubuntu 20.04 lets say should not have 32 bit parts. why? cause the same reason we dont need 16 bit parts.
Seems to me as if dropping 32bit support in Ubuntu has quite a lot of people upset because they're essentially making perfectly fine software not workable without any real good reason.
 
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spotanjo3

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Three words: 32bit is useless.

Go for 64bit. I am being with 64bit for a long time. Its better! One day PCSX2 will be force to use 64bit. :)
 

Urbanshadow

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I had heard of both of these, I was thinking more that it may cause too many problems to just ditch 32bit support that they want to ditch traditional windows software entirely.

Careful. I was refering to the Win API version commonly known as Win32, but that has nothing to do with the 32 bits arch discussion. I have internal information about MS plans on API because where I work we have heavy dependencies on it. WPF will last a little bit more. Sadly that's all I can tell.
 
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ghjfdtg

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32 bit OSs need to die. But 32 bit software support is still important. I don't know of any 32 bit machine which could run Windows 10. They pretty much all stopped working since W8 since that required CPU features not many 32 bit CPUs have in the first place so Microsoft is keeping 32 bit only around because of crappy tablets with under or max 4GB RAM and 32 bit BIOS.

As for Linux i don't know. Does it even make sense to support such old machines when they could not run any modern browser without running out of RAM in a few minutes?
 

FAST6191

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32 bit OSs need to die. But 32 bit software support is still important. I don't know of any 32 bit machine which could run Windows 10. They pretty much all stopped working since W8 since that required CPU features not many 32 bit CPUs have in the first place so Microsoft is keeping 32 bit only around because of crappy tablets with under or max 4GB RAM and 32 bit BIOS.

As for Linux i don't know. Does it even make sense to support such old machines when they could not run any modern browser without running out of RAM in a few minutes?

If you are making a 32 bit mode (much less one capable of handling drivers) then the question is why not spin it off into a fully fledged OS by itself if it is relatively easy to do so?

As for linux there is more to it all than desktop Linux. Not to mention and my several hundred (usually video) tabs have been coming to you from 4 gigs of RAM (or less) for several years now.
 

tech3475

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Careful. I was refering to the Win API version commonly known as Win32, but that has nothing to do with the 32 bits arch discussion. I have internal information about MS plans on API because where I work we have heavy dependencies on it. WPF will last a little bit more. Sadly that's all I can tell.

The topic is a bit of a mess anyway since it’s a mixture of dropping 32bit OS and 32bit binary support (the scenario which prompted this was about the latter).

By 32bit support I meant win32.
 

Jayro

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Dropping 32bit in its entirety could screw things up. There was a huge blow up over it at r/linux_gaming. Interesting reads.
Valve just needs to make a 64-bit Steam client. Kind of pathetic they haven't yet.
 

Insane

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Valve just needs to make a 64-bit Steam client. Kind of pathetic they haven't yet.

They have not done this because it doesn't make sense. They fit into 4 gig memory and performance wise it will most likely not make a difference for them. So they decided to not do it.
 

InsaneNutter

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I've used a 64bit version of Windows since 2006. I must be honest i'd long since expected Microsoft to drop support for 32bit consumer editions of Windows like they did with Windows Server.

Most 32bit programs work fine on 64bit Windows, so it's not really an issue to me. I have VM's for anything really old I need to run, physical hardware can be passed though to these VM's if required.
 

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