Re: multiarch/bi-arch status (ETA) question
On 7/5/05, David Wood <obsidian@panix.com> wrote:
> It took a startlingly small amount of effort in the kernel.
Not sure about small, but it works very well. Yes, if only userspace
was just as easy...
> If we were starting from a blank slate, we can have the rest
> with a tiny change in our naming scheme, a bit of package metadata, and
> some trivial code enhancements.
Agreed.
> If the sticking point is that it will take
> some effort to enhance our _existing_ packages/package system, hey, we
> have this excellent migration plan that doesn't commit us to anything, and
> allows us to work on the new system while the old one works fine...
However, we do not start with a blank slate. Rather, people expect
that "Linux programs" also work on Debian. And since AMD64 is touted
as a "compatible" improvement, of course they expect full
compatibility.
The initiative has been taken by other distributions, and I don't see
a viable alternative to follow their approach. That means /usr/lib for
32bit libs and /usr/lib64 for the 64bit libs. Yes, it is ugly, but it
is close to inevitable.
I would prefer architecture neutral file positions very much
(/usr/bin/i386 for binaries, /usr/lib/i386 for libraries etc), but I
don't see how that can be "compatible" with RedHat/SuSUE.
But maybe we are taking the wrong approach, and a little bit of path
magic in ld.so/dlopen would solve the problem?
Thomas
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