Hello everyone! I have a question about this part of Trisquel GNU/Linux
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Recently I've been seeing that some GNU/Linux distributions have been dropping 32-bit support out of their plans. This including Ubuntu and Arch (although, for the latter, there is arch32 which fixes that and the libre-projects known as Parabola GNU/Linux and Hyperbola have 32-bit versions as well)
However, as the Trisquel project changed bases from Debian to Ubuntu 16.04. I wanted to know if plans to dropping 32-bit support and only 64 will be the future for Trisquel 9 Etiona? As upstream Ubuntu and its derivatives have all dropped support for this architecture, which I see a big shame.
Have a good day, cheers!
- Symphony
> I wanted to know if plans to dropping 32-bit support and only 64
> will be the future for Trisquel 9 Etiona?
Trisquel 9 will be based on Ubuntu 18.04. Since 18.04 has 32-bit support
I do not think it will be a problem for Trisquel 9. Trisquel 9 will also
add support for some non-x68 architectures.
Do you know when Ubuntu is planning to drop 32-bit support? There is a
32-bit ISO for the 19.04 prerelease,[1] so it seems that they have not
done so yet. If they drop 32-bit support before 20.04 then this will
become an issue with Trisquel 10. If 20.04 does have 32-bit support then
it won't become an issue until Trisquel 11.
Even if Ubuntu does this it doesn't necessarily follow that Trisquel must as well. There has been no announcement that Trisquel will be doing this.
Thanks for answering everyone! As for a few questions up above. No, I do not know if Ubuntu is going to drop 32-bit support or if they have plans on doing so, I didn't know about the netboot discs and that they still had 32-bit support. All that I knew was that flavors of Ubuntu (such as Lubuntu, Xubuntu) officially announced that they've dropped 32-bit support and that got me worrying that the same fate could've had happened to Trisquel GNU/Linux, but it seems like my worries were unfounded, thank goodness.
I do hope that this arch gets to stay for a long time for Trisquel users and that if anything arises then the Trisquel team has something to answer us. As always, thank you very much for participating and have a good day!
> I didn't know about the netboot discs and that they still
> had 32-bit support.
Understandable. I had to specifically look for them. The Ubuntu website
doesn't go out of its way to advertise that they support more
architectures than amd64.
> All that I knew was that flavors of Ubuntu (such as
> Lubuntu, Xubuntu) officially announced that they've dropped 32-bit
> support
Lubuntu and Xubuntu use the same repository and packages as Ubuntu. The
only difference is the default desktop environment. You can turn any
Ubuntu system in Xubuntu by installing XFCE and removing the previous
desktop environment (although the cleanest way is to start with a
netboot), even if there is no 32-bit ISO of Xubuntu. Trisquel isn't
affected either, as long as as Ubuntu still has 32-bit packages.
> and that got me worrying that the same fate could've had happened
> to Trisquel GNU/Linux
Even if Ubuntu does drop 32-bit support, Trisquel doesn't necessarily
have to do the same, and it doesn't seem like the issue will even arise
for at least the next version or two of Trisquel.
Chaosmonk:
> Even if Ubuntu does drop 32-bit support, Trisquel doesn't necessarily have to do the same
True, but wouldn't that mean having to import an increasing number of packages from elsewhere? If the value of basing Trisquel off an upstream distro is that it limits the amount of work required to assemble it, wouldn't that benefit be negated by having to cobble together packages from multiple sources to maintain consistent 32-bit support?
While we're discussing Etiona, am I correct to presume that Mate will be the default desktop again? If so, what are the plans for Trisquel-Mini? We know that LXDE is a dead parrot, and that even Lubuntu have moved to LXQT. But Lubuntu 18.04 LTS was the last version released with LXDE, so that does remains an option for a Mini version of Etiona.
With these changes to Lubuntu they have officially announced they're no longer a lightweight distro for older PCs, and I'd put (a small amount of) money on LXQT being more resource intensive that Mate. So for Trisquel 10, it seems that it will be time to either retire Mini, or choose another default desktop, one that's significantly lighter than Mate. Maybe now is the time to start discussing candidates, and since LXDE isn't much lighter than Mate (if any), maybe the new Mini desktop could be released with Etiona?
> True, but wouldn't that mean having to import an increasing number of
> packages from elsewhere?
I'm not sure exactly how much extra work it would be. It would certainly
help if there were an arch32-like community project. That said, I don't
see any reason to expect Ubuntu to drop 32-bit support any time soon.
They support a variety of architectures, unlike Arch who only supported
x86 and seemed to reduce support to one architecture to save effort.
> While we're discussing Etiona, am I correct to presume that Mate will be
> the default desktop again?
I haven't heard otherwise.
> So for
> Trisquel 10, it seems that it will be time to either retire Mini, or
> choose another default desktop, one that's significantly lighter than
> Mate. Maybe now is the time to start discussing candidates
A while back I set up a low-resource netbook with Trisquel using Icewm
instead of a full DE. Some screenshots here:
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/solved-problem-lxde#comment-137293
Given the rather modest hardware requirements of MATE, I do not see much point in Trisquel Mini anymore. But maybe I am wrong: are there many current users of Trisquel Mini who have 1 GB (or less) of RAM?
> Given the rather modest hardware requirements of MATE, I do not see much
> point in Trisquel Mini anymore. But maybe I am wrong: are there many
> current users of Trisquel Mini who have 1 GB (or less) of RAM?
I have a few machines (not my primary one) with 1GB of RAM, and there
is a noticeable difference between Trisquel and Trisquel Mini, not so
much in RAM usage but in the time it takes to start a session (MATE
slowly adds in panels/applets/etc one by one until the session is
usable) and responsiveness of desktop components like menus and the file
manager.
However, the biggest responsiveness issues I run into on these
low-resource computers are with individual applications, which I don't
think is an issue of the desktop environment. Abrowser takes about 40
seconds to load whether it's in Trisquel, Trisquel Mini, or Icewm, so
choice of default applications seems like a bigger issue than choice of
desktop environment, at least for 1GB of RAM. With even less RAM, the
difference in RAM usage between Trisquel, Trisquel Mini, and something
like Icewm might be more important.
Mate is working really well for me and I probably have one of the oldest computers anyone is still trying to use (bought in 2010):
https://www.coactivate.org/projects/disintermedia/bishop
I doubled the RAM to 2GB about a year ago. Just before that I replaced the HDD with an SSD and as I've mentioned before, this improved the laptop's performance much more than doubling the RAM. As SSDs become more mainstream and the price drops, it's not a particularly expensive upgrade, and it's not a difficult one either. When you consider that a magnetic drive is at increasing risk of becoming unreliable the longer it's in use, replacing it with an SDD as soon as one can afford it is a pretty good investment.
I suspect Mate would have been usable even without my hardware upgrades, although obviously it wouldn't have been nearly as smooth. So Trisquel-Mini probably isn't strictly necessary just for supporting older hardware. But Chaosmonk makes a good point about the default apps, which probably would have improved the UX on my laptop pre-upgrade. Also, sometimes folks might want a more minimal DE because they want to dedicate more of their computer's resources to the apps they're running (eg games, or audio and video production). Trisquel-Mini could be useful for these kinds of situations too. Yes, folks can just install a lighter DE themselves (I always install Openbox for playing games or just for a less distracting writing space), so the potential benefits have to be weighed against the extra work involved in maintaining a Mini version.
In my ideal world there would be three versions of Trisquel:
* Trisquel default - with Mate, works out-of-the-box for just about everyone
* Trisquel-Mini - with a more lightweight set of default apps, and a lighter DE that's still somewhat noob-friendly, if anyone can think of a good one
* Trisquel-Maxi - with a more heavyweight DE that shows off all the bells and whistle GNU/Linux is capable of on recent hardware
There would also be a very simple graphical tool for switching from Maxi to default and from default to Mini, as the hardware requirements of each DE gradually creep up over the years. I've written about my frustrations with this here:
https://www.coactivate.org/projects/disintermedia/blog/2016/10/18/escaping-distro-roulette-can-we-do-hardware-specific-gnulinux-distributions/
It might also be worth giving some thought to a Trisquel-Touch at some point, although I guess we will be able to use the version of PureOS developed for the Librem 5 for touchscreen devices. Again, the cost in extra work would have to be balanced against the potential benefits.
How does the software in SSDs work? There was some talk a while back that all SSDs contain proprietary software (but there was disagreement if I recall correctly about what this software could do/have access to).
Do you anything about this?
GrevenGull
> There was some talk a while back that all SSDs contain proprietary software
I haven't tried to Libreboot this laptop, so I'm only running free code from the kernel up. It's possible that there may be proprietary code built into the BIOS (or some other part of the hardware) that allows the SSD to work.
All I can tell you is that the upgrade simply involved pulling out the old magnetic drive, plugging the SSD into the same port, and doing a fresh install of Trisquel. I didn't add any proprietary software that I'm aware of.
What games do you play btw?:)
TBH I play games very little these days. Partly because my ancient hardware doesn't support many games, and partly because if I'm going to use a computer to explore a virtual world, interact with characters, and find surprises and excitement, there's no better multi-player game than The Internet ;) I kept some notes on some of the libre games I have tested. I probably spent the most time on FreeDroid (loved ParaDroid on the C64 back in the 80s!), BOS Wars, 0AD, and the Balderdash clone (can't remember what it was called and it's not in my notes):
https://www.coactivate.org/projects/disintermedia/libre-games
I also keep some general notes on libre game development here:
https://www.coactivate.org/projects/disintermedia/libre-game-development
I am one of them. Sometimes.
So am I. Often
As long as Debian keeps i386 architecture, it's not a big problem.
I do have some legacy computers (32-bit CPU without PAE) running i386 version of Debian testing. The only problem is that the very-old Intel integrated graphics (830GM for X30 and 855GM for X40, respectively) are not well supported by the i915 driver, so I could only use light-weight desktop environments like Xfce or MATE.
I don't know what are you answering to; for x86 platform Debian
currently requires i686 compatible processors.
Next version (Debian 10) will keep this architecture, but I don't know
about the concrete PAE feature whet it will be released as stable version.
El 15/4/19 a les 16:14, name at domain ha escrit:
> As long as Debian keeps i386 architecture, it's not a big problem.
>
> I do have some legacy computers (32-bit CPU without PAE) running i386
> version of Debian testing. The only problem is that the very-old Intel
> integrated graphics (830GM for X30 and 855GM for X40, respectively) are
> not well supported by the i915 driver, so I could only use light-weight
> desktop environments like Xfce or MATE.
"currently requires i686 compatible processors."
Perhaps; but the name of the architecture (in the package manager and when downloading the ISO from debian.org) remains "i386" and so when you see people mentioning "i386" in relation to Debian it is best to interpret that to be a reference to the Debian name of the architecture, not the precise CPU.
I don't see what are you answering to, but I remember that this list
thread was related to supported processors by Linux kernels.
El 16/4/19 a les 3:14, name at domain ha escrit:
> "currently requires i686 compatible processors."
>
> Perhaps; but the name of the architecture (in the package manager and
> when downloading the ISO from debian.org) remains "i386" and so when you
> see people mentioning "i386" in relation to Debian it is best to
> interpret that to be a reference to the Debian name of the architecture,
> not the precise CPU.
"I don't see what are you answering to"
I was responding to you. It's all there on the web forums. Check it out: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/hello-everyone-i-have-question-about-part-trisquel-gnulinux#comment-140444 on #18, #19, #20.
nadebula.1984: "As long as Debian keeps i386 architecture, it's not a big problem ... I do have some legacy computers (32-bit CPU without PAE) running i386 version of Debian testing..."
Narcis Garcia: (To nadebula.1984): "I don't know what are you answering to; for x86 platform Debian. currently requires i686 compatible processors."
Me: The usage of i386 in that context was not to processors but instead to Debian's name of this port, which they still call i386 even though it requires i686 processors. The ISO installer image, in the package manager, everywhere. So when you see someone saying that they're not referring to the processor in that context but instead to Debian's naming of it the port. Hopefully that makes nadebula.1984's comment more understandable then. :)
I don't subscribe a mailing list to be using it as a web forum.
(by visiting archive for each response)
El 17/4/19 a les 5:54, name at domain ha escrit:
> "I don't see what are you answering to"
>
> I was responding to you. It's all there on the web forums. Check it out:
> https://trisquel.info/en/forum/hello-everyone-i-have-question-about-part-trisquel-gnulinux#comment-140444
> on #18, #19, #20.
>
> nadebula.1984: "As long as Debian keeps i386 architecture, it's not a
> big problem ... I do have some legacy computers (32-bit CPU without PAE)
> running i386 version of Debian testing..."
>
> Narcis Garcia: (To nadebula.1984): "I don't know what are you answering
> to; for x86 platform Debian. currently requires i686 compatible
> processors."
>
> Me: The usage of i386 in that context was not to processors but instead
> to Debian's name of this port, which they still call i386 even though it
> requires i686 processors. The ISO installer image, in the package
> manager, everywhere. So when you see someone saying that they're not
> referring to the processor in that context. :)
"I don't subscribe a mailing list to be using it as a web forum. by visiting archive for each response)
Perhaps it may be worth considering if your email program can't tell you what message is a reply to what? (Since you've indicated twice earlier that "I don't see what are you answering to.")
My X40 does support Debian testing (buster) i386. However, it is possible that my X40 has PAE support. I may need to check its CPU architecture (Banias or Dothan).
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