We have had a successful release of Ubuntu Budgie 18.04 LTS and we now are in full planning mode for 18.10.
Similar to the decision made by Ubuntu themselves at 17.10, we have decided to concentrate all our efforts on producing a really good image based on the hardware almost all of you actually use now.
Eh – does this impact me?
Highly unlikely – from the various reports and statistics we have observed from 16.04 budgie-remix all the way to you enthusiastic 18.04 trail-blazers, almost all of you are now using the 64bit ISO.
We have also seen various reports that those that are using the 32bit ISO are again doing so on a 64bit hardware architecture – i.e. you could just use the 64bit ISO but have not chosen to.
Ubuntu will still offer 32-bit packages (i386 intel/amd) packages in the various package repositories.
… but I need 32bit images
We do know that this decision will upset some of you.
Rest assured for the entire 18.04 cycle – the next 3 years will continue with updated 32bit ISO’s of Ubuntu Budgie.
I’m sure you are already aware software providers and various hardware manufacturers no longer produce 32bit software or are about to drop support for 32bit versions of their software. Chrome, Nvidia, Vivaldi are recent examples. Even the provider of Firefox (mozilla) support 64bit only – its kind of a happy coincidence that 32bit still works and that is thanks to the maintainers working with the opensource community at large.
None of the Ubuntu Budgie test team have access to 32bit hardware – so our development is only via Virtualbox. That isnt really satisfactory.
I hope you understand the decision. The next three years we will endeavour providing good support moving forward with 18.04 through to 18.10 and beyond.