Two years ago, the developers of the Ubuntu distribution stopped releasing 32-bit builds of the operating system. Now the decision to complete the formation and the corresponding packages. The deadline is the fall release of Ubuntu 19.10. And the last branch of LTS with support for 32-bit memory addressing will be Ubuntu 18.04. Its free support will last until April 2023, and a paid subscription will provide a period until 2028.
It is noted that all editions of distributions based on Ubuntu will also lose support for the old format. Although, in fact, the majority have already abandoned this. However, the ability to run 32-bit applications on Ubuntu 19.10 and later will continue. To do this, it is proposed to use a separate environment with Ubuntu 18.04 in a container or a snap package with the appropriate libraries.
As for the reasons for the termination of support for the i386 architecture, there are security issues among them. For example, many tools in the Linux kernel, browsers, and various utilities are no longer developed for 32-bit architectures. Or is it done too late.
In addition, supporting the outdated architecture takes additional resources and time, while the audience of users of such systems does not exceed 1% of the total number of those who “sit” on Ubuntu. Finally, hardware without support for 64-bit memory addressing is outdated and unused. Most PCs and laptops have long been equipped with processors with 64-bit addressing, so there should be no problems with the transition. In any case, that's how it's supposed to be.
Source: 3dnews.ru