Re: Ubuntu... downgrade? (64-bit - 32-bit)

2011-01-26 Thread Benjamin Scott
On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 11:40 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:
 Hmmm... might be worth looking into.  I mean, what's the worst that
 happens?  I bork my system, and wind up doing a re-install.  Which is what
 I'm looking at, anyway.  So, yeah -- I'll poke around and see what I can
 make happen.

  I have an idea I've been turning over in my head which may be
applicable here, too: Set up another installation in a directory
branch.  In your case, maybe under /usr/ubuntu-i386/ or something
like that.

  The reason I want to do this is so I can get certain things from
Debian unstable to install (with all their library dependencies)
without having to run my entire system on unstable.[1]

  One way to do this would be to bootstrap an installation in a VM or
a chroot, but that's a bit heavy-handed.

  I've been fiddling with using arguments to apt-get/dpkg to change
the root directory for that invocation, e.g.:

sudo apt-get -o 'RootDir=/usr/unstable' update

  That problem I have is that I haven't found the magic needed to
initialize an apt installation.  It rightly complains that its data
files are missing, but I don't know any way to create them.  With RPM,
it's rpm --initdb.  Anyone know how to do it in APT-land?

-- Ben

[1] For example, Debian lenny ships a rather buggy release of
Audacious.  But installing a backport would require replacing half my
system, including libc.  Might as well just run unstable as the main
system.  Building from source requires building a ton of other
libraries as well.

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Re: Ubuntu... downgrade? (64-bit - 32-bit)

2011-01-26 Thread Brian St. Pierre
On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 8:54 AM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 11:40 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:
 Hmmm... might be worth looking into.  I mean, what's the worst that
 happens?  I bork my system, and wind up doing a re-install.  Which is what
 I'm looking at, anyway.  So, yeah -- I'll poke around and see what I can
 make happen.

  I have an idea I've been turning over in my head which may be
 applicable here, too: Set up another installation in a directory
 branch.  In your case, maybe under /usr/ubuntu-i386/ or something
 like that.

  The reason I want to do this is so I can get certain things from
 Debian unstable to install (with all their library dependencies)
 without having to run my entire system on unstable.[1]

  One way to do this would be to bootstrap an installation in a VM or
 a chroot, but that's a bit heavy-handed.

I used to maintain a 32-bit install inside of my 64-bit install
(debian) with schroot and instructions similar to these:

http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/566

https://alioth.debian.org/docman/view.php/30192/21/debian-amd64-howto.html#id292281

I needed it to be able to use a couple of binary-only packages that
were only available as 32-bit.

  I've been fiddling with using arguments to apt-get/dpkg to change
 the root directory for that invocation, e.g.:

        sudo apt-get -o 'RootDir=/usr/unstable' update

  That problem I have is that I haven't found the magic needed to
 initialize an apt installation.  It rightly complains that its data
 files are missing, but I don't know any way to create them.  With RPM,
 it's rpm --initdb.  Anyone know how to do it in APT-land?

Take a look at debootstrap, it might do what you want.

-Brian

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Re: Ubuntu... downgrade? (64-bit - 32-bit)

2011-01-26 Thread Ken D'Ambrosio
On Wed, January 26, 2011 8:54 am, Benjamin Scott wrote:

 I have an idea I've been turning over in my head which may be
 applicable here, too: Set up another installation in a directory branch.
 In your case, maybe under /usr/ubuntu-i386/ or something
 like that.

That could be fun.  *ponders inserting a chroot or a pivot_root into the
installation process*

 I've been fiddling with using arguments to apt-get/dpkg to change
 the root directory for that invocation, e.g.:

 sudo apt-get -o 'RootDir=/usr/unstable' update

Interesting.  Hadn't known about/considered this route.

 That problem I have is that I haven't found the magic needed to
 initialize an apt installation.  It rightly complains that its data files
 are missing, but I don't know any way to create them.  With RPM, it's rpm
 --initdb.  Anyone know how to do it in APT-land?

Googling around didn't come up with anything that simple -- but I did find
something: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Debian/package-database-rebuild.html
Looks like Nicholas Petreley wrote a column (dead link referenced in page)
describing a similar issue, and someone wrote up a script in response. 
It's from 2003 -- a mere eight years ago might cause there to be some
issues, but at the least, it seems to have some interesting ideas for
mining.

-Ken





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Re: Ubuntu... downgrade? (64-bit - 32-bit)

2011-01-26 Thread Tom Buskey
On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 9:11 AM, Brian St. Pierre br...@bstpierre.orgwrote:

 On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 8:54 AM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 11:40 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:
  Hmmm... might be worth looking into.  I mean, what's the worst that
  happens?  I bork my system, and wind up doing a re-install.  Which is
 what
  I'm looking at, anyway.  So, yeah -- I'll poke around and see what I can
  make happen.
 
   I have an idea I've been turning over in my head which may be
  applicable here, too: Set up another installation in a directory
  branch.  In your case, maybe under /usr/ubuntu-i386/ or something
  like that.
 
   The reason I want to do this is so I can get certain things from
  Debian unstable to install (with all their library dependencies)
  without having to run my entire system on unstable.[1]
 
   One way to do this would be to bootstrap an installation in a VM or
  a chroot, but that's a bit heavy-handed.


And clumsy :-(  FWIW, VirtualBox can do a 64bit VM on top of a 32bit host.
I think VMware workstation can also.  But, clumsy.



 I used to maintain a 32-bit install inside of my 64-bit install
 (debian) with schroot and instructions similar to these:

http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/566

 https://alioth.debian.org/docman/view.php/30192/21/debian-amd64-howto.html#id292281

 I needed it to be able to use a couple of binary-only packages that
 were only available as 32-bit.


That could be useful.  I run pyTivo to provide a video store for my tivos.
It will transcode using ffmpeg to the mpg2 format tivo uses.  Right now,
it's 64 bits and maybe it would be better in 32 bits.
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Re: Ubuntu... downgrade? (64-bit - 32-bit)

2011-01-26 Thread Benjamin Scott
On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 9:16 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:
 Googling around didn't come up with anything that simple -- but I did find
 something: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Debian/package-database-rebuild.html

  Ahh that was the missing puzzle piece.  Thanks!

  Below is a series of commands that appear to get things started.  It
promptly wants to install 88 MB of packages, because it of course
thinks there are no packages installed.  I figure I can hack the
status file to lie to it about things that will come from the host
system (like apt and the kernel).

  You'll need to change CHANGEME to your preferred local mirror.

  There's nothing in the below about architecture, but I think if you add

 APT::Architecture i386;

to the apt.conf then you'll get what you want.

 begin commands 
mkdir -p /usr/unstable/etc/apt

echo 'RootDir /usr/unstable;'  /usr/unstable/etc/apt/apt.conf

echo 'deb http://CHANGEME/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib' 
/usr/unstable/etc/apt/sources.list

mkdir -p /usr/unstable/var/lib/dpkg
mkdir -p /usr/unstable/var/lib/apt/lists/partial
mkdir -p /usr/unstable/var/cache/apt/archives/partial

touch /usr/unstable/var/lib/dpkg/status

mkdir -p /usr/unstable/usr/lib
ln -s ../../../lib/apt /usr/unstable/usr/lib/apt

apt-get -c /usr/unstable/etc/apt/apt.conf update
 end commands 

-- Ben
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Ubuntu... downgrade? (64-bit - 32-bit)

2011-01-25 Thread Ken D'Ambrosio
Hey, all.  I've got a big ol' RAID box that I use to store... well, pretty
much everything.  Threw 64-bit Ubuntu on it, 'cause, well, why not?

I now know why not.

I'm afraid I've fallen into the portable device rage, e.g., my Droid-X. 
Nifty thing, it is -- even set it up with VPN, SIP through my job, and all
sorts of other fun stuff.  Now I'd like to play video from my server on
the phone.  Unfortunately, its media player is pretty useless -- far
better to generate video from the server, and stream it, apparently.  But!
 64-bit CODECs are also kinda lousy.  And it's not like I have a oodles of
RAM -- 2 GB -- so dropping to a 32-bit system won't really harm anything.

But Googling that doesn't really help much.  Any suggestions?  What I'd
*love* to do is an apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade, and be done with
it.  Somehow, though, I'm thinking it won't be that simple.  I'd really
like to avoid a full re-install -- a lot of configuration has gone into
this silly thing, and, while I could backup /etc and pray that was enough,
I'd prefer not to find out the hard way.

Thanks for any suggestions,

-Ken




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Re: Ubuntu... downgrade? (64-bit - 32-bit)

2011-01-25 Thread Ryan Stanyan
As far as I know you can't downgrade a 64-bit installation to a 32-bit one.
I am not the most current in terms of Ubuntu knowledge but the closest I
came to this was reinstalling all my media codecs in their 32-bit form
On Jan 25, 2011 10:00 PM, Ken Dapos;Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:
 Hey, all. I've got a big ol' RAID box that I use to store... well, pretty
 much everything. Threw 64-bit Ubuntu on it, 'cause, well, why not?

 I now know why not.

 I'm afraid I've fallen into the portable device rage, e.g., my Droid-X.
 Nifty thing, it is -- even set it up with VPN, SIP through my job, and all
 sorts of other fun stuff. Now I'd like to play video from my server on
 the phone. Unfortunately, its media player is pretty useless -- far
 better to generate video from the server, and stream it, apparently. But!
 64-bit CODECs are also kinda lousy. And it's not like I have a oodles of
 RAM -- 2 GB -- so dropping to a 32-bit system won't really harm anything.

 But Googling that doesn't really help much. Any suggestions? What I'd
 *love* to do is an apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade, and be done with
 it. Somehow, though, I'm thinking it won't be that simple. I'd really
 like to avoid a full re-install -- a lot of configuration has gone into
 this silly thing, and, while I could backup /etc and pray that was enough,
 I'd prefer not to find out the hard way.

 Thanks for any suggestions,

 -Ken




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Re: Ubuntu... downgrade? (64-bit - 32-bit)

2011-01-25 Thread Corey Richardson
On 01/25/2011 09:57 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio wrote:
 Hey, all.  I've got a big ol' RAID box that I use to store... well, pretty
 much everything.  Threw 64-bit Ubuntu on it, 'cause, well, why not?
 
 I now know why not.
 
 I'm afraid I've fallen into the portable device rage, e.g., my Droid-X. 
 Nifty thing, it is -- even set it up with VPN, SIP through my job, and all
 sorts of other fun stuff.  Now I'd like to play video from my server on
 the phone.  Unfortunately, its media player is pretty useless -- far
 better to generate video from the server, and stream it, apparently.  But!
  64-bit CODECs are also kinda lousy.  And it's not like I have a oodles of
 RAM -- 2 GB -- so dropping to a 32-bit system won't really harm anything.
 
 But Googling that doesn't really help much.  Any suggestions?  What I'd
 *love* to do is an apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade, and be done with
 it.  Somehow, though, I'm thinking it won't be that simple.  I'd really
 like to avoid a full re-install -- a lot of configuration has gone into
 this silly thing, and, while I could backup /etc and pray that was enough,
 I'd prefer not to find out the hard way.
 
 Thanks for any suggestions,
 
 -Ken

I've never a run 32-bit linux on a 64-bit box. I've tried, don't get me
wrong (accidentally downloaded wrong disk image..whoops!), and it
doesn't work out. Nor have I gotten 64-bit linux onto a 32-bit box..How
DID you manage that? Unless of course you didn't, and you are merely
looking into switching. (I have no advice for you, just questions for my
own edification ;-)
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Re: Ubuntu... downgrade? (64-bit - 32-bit)

2011-01-25 Thread Joshua Judson Rosen
Ryan Stanyan ryan.stan...@gmail.com writes:

 As far as I know you can't downgrade a 64-bit installation to a
 32-bit one.  I am not the most current in terms of Ubuntu knowledge
 but the closest I came to this was reinstalling all my media codecs
 in their 32-bit form

What Ryan said--there's an `ia32-libs' package (and some other,
related `ia32' packages) that can be installed on 64-bit systems
to facilitate things like that.


 On Jan 25, 2011 10:00 PM, Ken Dapos;Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:
  Hey, all. I've got a big ol' RAID box that I use to store... well, pretty
  much everything. Threw 64-bit Ubuntu on it, 'cause, well, why not?
 
  I now know why not.
 
  I'm afraid I've fallen into the portable device rage, e.g., my Droid-X.
  Nifty thing, it is -- even set it up with VPN, SIP through my job, and all
  sorts of other fun stuff. Now I'd like to play video from my server on
  the phone. Unfortunately, its media player is pretty useless -- far
  better to generate video from the server, and stream it, apparently. But!
  64-bit CODECs are also kinda lousy. And it's not like I have a oodles of
  RAM -- 2 GB -- so dropping to a 32-bit system won't really harm anything.
 
  But Googling that doesn't really help much. Any suggestions? What I'd
  *love* to do is an apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade, and be done with
  it. Somehow, though, I'm thinking it won't be that simple. I'd really
  like to avoid a full re-install -- a lot of configuration has gone into
  this silly thing, and, while I could backup /etc and pray that was enough,
  I'd prefer not to find out the hard way.
 
  Thanks for any suggestions,

-- 
Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr.

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Re: Ubuntu... downgrade? (64-bit - 32-bit)

2011-01-25 Thread Ken D'Ambrosio
On Tue, January 25, 2011 10:32 pm, Mark Komarinski wrote:
 On 1/25/2011 9:57 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio wrote:

 What are you using for streaming?  Even though my system is Debian
 running x86_64, I haven't had a problem finding libraries.  I ask mostly
 because I'd like to do the same thing with my Droid.  I haven't found a
 good app to do so yet.

VLC is the app on server-side, and vlc stream  convert is the Droid-X
VLC client.  I get server-side errors like
[0xd59f50] main stream out error: Failed to create audio filter
[0xd59f50] stream_out_transcode stream out error: Failed to find
conversion filter for resampling
[0xd59f50] stream_out_transcode stream out error: cannot create audio chain
[0xdf8a50] main decoder error: cannot create packetizer output (mp4a)

when I try streaming from my 64-bit box.  If I mount said directories from
a 32-bit box, and stream, it all works fine.

 Depending on the application you use and libraries you require, if you
 can find the application and the ia32 libraries the app needs, you can
 certainly run it on a 64-bit system.  I've done this before (again, on a
 Debian system) as you can get the ia32 versions of libraries, extract
 the libraries from the .deb, and install them by hand. I'd have to look at
 my notes to see what the rest of the process was, but I remember it was
 pretty straightforward after that.

Hmmm... might be worth looking into.  I mean, what's the worst that
happens?  I bork my system, and wind up doing a re-install.  Which is what
I'm looking at, anyway.  So, yeah -- I'll poke around and see what I can
make happen.

Thanks!

-Ken



 -Mark
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