Bug#637363: debootstrap 1.0.35 fails to accept --arch=amd64 on CentOS 5.6 system

[Whit Blauvelt <whit@transpect.com>]

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 08:34:12PM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:

> --arch is the target architecture, not the current architecture. It
> needs the latter to know how to deal with some details. debootstrap
> should probably resort to uname in such case. 

Note in the default case (if I understand correctly now) debootstrap assumes
that the current architecture shown by dpkg is also the target architecture.
Why not also assume the reverse - that if the target architecture is
specified through --arch and the current architecture is not discovered, the
current architecture should be assumed the same as the target?

Also note "target" is an ambiguous term - the target in normal English is
the existing object which receives the new thing (as when the target is a
dartboard, and the new element introduced the dart), so the use of "target
architecture" in the --help screen misleads a number of people besides me -
as I see from Googling the error message.

Thanks,
Whit