Re: multiarch/bi-arch status (ETA) question

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

Bob Mitchel <bobemitc@yahoo.com> writes:

> In a couple posts, I noticed that multiarch (or
> bi-arch) support was going to be worked on after the
> release of sarge.  I'd like very much to be able to
> use my machine to its potential... can anyone give me
> an estimate of when it will be avaliable, or point me
> to a status page?  Everything I have found seemed very
> outdated, most of it being dated 2003 or even earlier.
>
> Thanks
> Bob

Multiarch will still be a long time in coming. At least if you want to
actualy use it.

The current timeline is as follows:

- get security support fully working
- split the archive by architectures to reduce mirror bandwith
- add amd64 to sid/etch
- rebuild and upload all packages from an official buildd

If we are not starting the etch freeze by then then the following can
start:

- add multiarch patch to gcc/binutils
- patch dpkg/apt for multiarch
- port ia32-libs to multiarch
- port essentials to multiarch

And only then you can actualy start using multiarch.


But you don't realy gain anything by multiarch for amd64. Only 3
things come to my mind: OpenOffice, Flash support and w32codecs +
32bit mplayer. And only OO is in Debian.

MfG
        Goswin