Re: Upcoming Debian multiarch support (amd64, sparc64, s390x, mips64) [affects sarge slightly]

[Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>]

Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> writes:

> * Goswin von Brederlow (brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de) wrote:
> > The reason for /lib 32 bit and /lib64 64 bit is to keep compatibility
> > to i386 compiled programs. I don't know how IA64 handles its /lib32
> > subdir but they probably have some magic in there that fails if
> > binaries are compiled with some uncommon options (like setting rpath).
> 
> Now, now, let's not be stupid here.  The reason for /lib 32bit is to
> keep compatibility with *broken* i386 binary-only programs.  The loader
> can certainly handle having a /lib32, there's only a problem when there
> are hard-coded paths in the binary that can't be changed (which is done
> using -rpath I think, if anyone actually uses it with system paths?).
> 
> > On amd64 the only real reason for 32 bit support is compatibility with
> > the old i386 stuff and binary-only stuff so breaking it even once is
> > not realy acceptable to a lot of people.
> 
> You can still be compatible with i386 and have a /lib32 except in the
> broken-binary case.  Personally no one has actually demonstrated such a
> case to me yet, but I've heard they exist.
> 
> 	Stephen

Civ3 checks for /lib/libc6* in the install script to see what version
is available. A /lib -> /lib32 link would do. But whats the point
then?

MfG
        Goswin