Hello, Guillem just released a "work-in-progress" version of dpkg that supports multiarch to experimental (dpkg 1.16.2~wipmultiarch). Beware: There will likely be some small "interface" changes between this version and the version that will be released later in unstable (possibly in the output of dpkg --get-selections, dpkg --list, maybe other commands).
Once installed, you add a supplementary architecture to your system by doing “sudo dpkg --add-architecture <arch>” (e.g. i386 if you are on amd64, and vice-versa). APT will automatically pick up the new architecture and start downloading the Packages file for the new architecture (it uses dpkg --print-foreign-architectures to know about them). >From there on you can install packages from the "foreign" architectures with "apt-get install foo:<arch>". Many packages will not be installable because some of their dependencies have not yet been updated to work with in a multiarch world (libraries must be installed in a multiarch-compliant path so as to be co-installable, and then marked "Multi-Arch: same"). Other dependencies might need to be marked "Multi-Arch: foreign". See http://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/Implementation for more HOWTO-like explanations. Now is a good time to see if you can cross-install the packages that you could need in such a setup and to help to convert the required libraries. If you discover any bug in dpkg's multiarch implementation, please report it to the BTS (against the version 1.16.2~wipmultiarch). That's not all, if you're a C programmer and have some good knowledge of dpkg (or are willing to learn more of it), we would certainly benefit from more eyes reviewing the multiarch branch. If you want to discuss some design issues of the multiarch implementation in dpkg (or have questions related to your review), please use debian-d...@lists.debian.org. The latest version of the branch is pu/multiarch/master in Guillem's personal repository. I have my own version of the branch (pu/multiarch/full) which is usually a snapshot of Guillem's branch with my own submitted fixes. $ git clone git://git.debian.org/dpkg/dpkg.git $ cd dpkg $ git remote add guillem git://git.hadrons.org/git/debian/dpkg/dpkg.git $ git remote add buxy git://git.debian.org/~hertzog/dpkg.git $ git fetch guillem && git fetch buxy If you followed the instructions above, the relevant branches are thus guillem/pu/multiarch/master and buxy/pu/multiarch/full. Both branches are regularly rebased on top of master where Guillem merges progressively the commits from the multi-arch branch as his review progresses. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer Pre-order a copy of the Debian Administrator's Handbook and help liberate it: http://debian-handbook.info/liberation/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120206073115.gb2...@rivendell.home.ouaza.com