Ubuntu's SPARC & IA64 Ports Have Been Killed

A few months back we reported that the IA64 and SPARC versions of Ubuntu were in trouble and would be decommissioned if no individual(s) were to step-up and maintain these ports of Ubuntu Linux for these architectures that are much less popular and common than x86 and x86_64 hardware. Well, there still is no one backing the Intel IA64 and Sun SPARC versions of Ubuntu Linux so they are being dropped completely.

The deadline for anyone to take over the work of maintaining these Ubuntu ports was the Maverick feature freeze, which passed last week, and the Ubuntu Technical Board has approved decommissioning this support entirely and dropping SPARC/IA64 from the Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" kernel.

Confirmation of this decision to end the Intel IA64 and Sun SPARC architecture support beginning with Ubuntu 10.10 and going forward can be found on the technical-board and ubuntu-devel mailing lists.