Maybe I don't understand the suggestion, but be careful here about substituting 32-bit libraries for 64-bit ones. A 32-bit binary can't link to a 64-bit library. At least, not easily. Switching between instruction sets within a process is not supported in Linux today, and I don't know of anyone working on changing that behavior.
Having said that, there are times when you can substitute a 32-bit dependency. Not in the case of libraries, but if you need to execute a script, the interpreter (e.g. bash, perl, tcsh, python) can be 32-bit or 64-bit. At trade shows, we've also run 64-bit X apps within a 32-bit X environment to show how easily you can mix programs. I think that's possible because the X protocol is platform-independent, and only tells the local X server what to display. ...but within that 64-bit X application, each required library is 64-bit, and within the 32-bit X server, each required library is 32-bit (so you could have something like a libX.so.# existing in both lib and lib64 directories being accessed at the same time). Most existing AMD64 distributions solved the problem by making all dependencies for a 64-bit package be 64-bit. That's the easiest way to go about it. Personally, I'd love to see a Linux OS which correctly identifies situations where 32-bit packages can be substituted for 64-bit ones. If Debian did this, I think it would be the first truly hybrid 32-bit & 64-bit Linux distribution (all AMD64 distributions I know of are 64-bit with support for 32-bit packages and often both 64-bit and 32-bit development capabilities). But identifying that for each package is a non-trivial undertaking. I would be the last to volunteer. -----Original Message----- From: Gerhard Tonn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 8:01 AM To: GOTO Masanori Cc: Joey Hess; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Re: dpkg and debhelper patches for lib64 support On Tuesday 10 June 2003 03:17, you wrote: > At Mon, 9 Jun 2003 16:26:17 +0200, > > Gerhard Tonn wrote: > > I have made some changes to dpkg and debhelper in order to support > > /lib64 and /usr/lib64 locations on 64 bit platforms. You find the patches > > at people.debian.org/~gt/lib64 along with patches for a bunch of other > > packages using the dpkg and debhelper extensions. Some of the patches > > have been used already by Arnd Bergmann for the x86-64 port. Any feedback > > is welcome. > > Excellent. > > > Assumptions: > > ------------ > > Development packages for 32 and 64 bit platforms are not installable > > concurrently. > > I don't still know about it, but > > * Is this assumption practical? > * Should development packages be capable to handle both 32/64 bit at > the same? > * Are there any example development packages which need to split > between for 32 and for 64 bit? > The assumption simplifies the lib64 support at least. If both 32 and 64 bit development packages are needed concurrently, we could add the *.so link of the 32 bit package to the 64 bit package instead. The dependencies have to be adapted accordingly. Regards, Gerhard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
