grub2-compat-ia32

Enable 32-bit x86 support in the kernel on modern openSUSE/SLE installations that do not include it by default.

Purpose

Starting with openSUSE Leap 16.0 and SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 16.0, support for 32-bit x86 execution is disabled by default.
This change was made to ensure that the system is Y2038-safe.

What This Package Does

This package adds the following kernel parameter:

ia32_emulation=1

This is done via:

/usr/sbin/update-bootloader --add-option "ia32_emulation=1"

Enabling this option restores compatibility with 32-bit x86 user-space binaries.

Without This Package

Applications like Steam, Wine, or VirtualBox that rely on 32-bit compatibility may fail with errors such as:

Error: Missing libc.so.6

or directly:

/usr/bin/ldd: line 159: /lib/ld-linux.so.2: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error
not a dynamic executable

Installation

Install the package using Zypper:

sudo zypper in grub2-compat-ia32

After installation, make sure to reboot:

sudo reboot

Further Reading

See https://en.opensuse.org/GRUB#Enabling_32bit_x86_support_in_Kernel