That's right, just as you're reading, Canonical has made the decision to stop creating and furthermore to no longer provide support for 32-bit architecture packages.
Well, almost two years after Canonical's decision to stop creating 32-bit images for Ubuntu, the Ubuntu developers have now decided to complete the end of the architecture's lifecycle in the distribution.
In a statement, they announced that starting with the next version of Ubuntu , Ubuntu 19.10, which will be released in the fall of this year, this version will already have the possibility of having packages with the i386 architecture in the repository.
The x32 architecture will die definitively in 2023
Despite this sudden decision by the developers to put aside the package work for 32-bit architecture. (Which might be understandable, since if you don't already have the x32 version, it's just an investment of time in development that few people take advantage of.)
Therefore, the latest current versions of Ubuntu with 32-bit support for both the system and packages are the LTS versions 16.04 and 18.04.
Where for users of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS support will last until April 2021 and for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS support will be until 2023 (while for a paid subscription until 2028).
While all official versions of the project such as Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, etc., as well as the derived distributions (Linux Mint, Pop_OS, Zorin, etc.) will be deprived of the possibility of delivering versions for the 32-bit x86 architecture , since they are created from a base of packages shared with Ubuntu (most editions have already stopped delivering installation images for i386).
To ensure the release of existing 32-bit applications that cannot be rebuilt for 64-bit systems (for example, many games on Steam remain only in 32-bit versions), it is proposed to use a separate environment with Ubuntu 18.04 on Ubuntu 19.10 and in newer environments in a container or chroot, or package the application in a snap package with core18 runtime libraries based on Ubuntu 18.04.
The motives
The reason for ending support for the i386 architecture is the inability to maintain packages at the level of other architectures supported by Ubuntu due to insufficient support in the Linux kernel, tools, and browsers.
In particular, the latest developments in the area of ​​improving security and protection against fundamental vulnerabilities are no longer developed in a timely manner for 32-bit x86 systems and are only available for a 64-bit architecture.
Furthermore, maintaining the i386 package base requires significant resources for development and quality control, which is not justified by the negligible user base that continues to use outdated equipment.
The number of i386 systems is estimated at 1% of the total number of installed systems. Most PCs and laptops with Intel and AMD processors, released in the last 10 years, can easily be switched to 64-bit mode.
Hardware that doesn't support 64-bit mode is already so outdated that it doesn't have the computing resources to run the latest versions of Ubuntu.
It's time to migrate to other options
Finally, many instances that usually receive donations or are charitable, and even in areas where there are not enough resources, may have teams with very limited resources.
So they tend to resort to using even 32-bit systems and is that Ubuntu is not the only distro to abandon this support.
But it is not the last that continued with him, so for many people it may be the step to use some other of the alternatives that continue with this architecture.