Ubuntu abandons the 32-bit platform

Several distributions are abandoning or abandoning the 32-bit platform, dedicating themselves only to the 64-bit platform and offering only one installation image. This list of distributions is growing and yesterday Ubuntu and its developers confirmed belonging to this list, that is, Ubuntu will abandon the 32-bit platform.

This change will be reflected in the next stable version of the distribution, that is, Ubuntu 17.10, a version that will be released on October 19.

Ubuntu will no longer have live images for the 32-bit platform as well as installation images. But packages for the 32-bit platform will continue to be maintained, for old installations of this platform. Future Ubuntu developments will also no longer have its 32-bit version.

Users of its official flavors will be able to have the 32-bit version. The official flavors will have to decide whether to continue with the 32-bit version or on the contrary, stop developing it. So many users of official flavors will not be affected by this decision from Canonical and the Ubuntu team.

The truth is that this decision responds to a situation that is increasingly present in user computers. The number of computers that support or use the 64-bit platform is very large, making it meaningless for many to develop versions for 32-bit computers, since even computers from 10 years ago support the 64-bit platform.

Personally, I think Ubuntu's decision is the right one since older 32-bit machines usually don't work well with the main version of Ubuntu. Instead, with the official flavors like Lubuntu, Xubuntu or Ubuntu MATE, 32-bit computers do work well and possibly it's the flavors that keep the 32-bit version. But this is an opinion and surely that many users will see this decision wrong What do you think? Do you think Ubuntu's decision is correct?