Bug#775948: gdb: Replace gdb64 with parallel installable multiarch packages?
Source: gdb
Source-Version: 7.8.1-1
Severity: wishlist
X-Debbugs-CC: debian-cross@lists.debian.org
[ CCing debian-cross in case my proposal is flawed. ]
Hi!
It would be nice if the gdb64 package could be dropped, because it's
making life hard for bootstrapping, as it's the only reason at least
the expat packages still need to provide multilib packages. If gdb
stopped doing multilib builds it would simplify the process quite a
bit and we could get rid of some redundant cruft, which by now should
be already provided by multiarch.
There's also already a gdb-multiarch package which should be able to
replace the gdb64 package in some circumstances. But for when that's
still not enough, it would be possible to make the gdb package be
Multi-Arch:same, and make it ship triplet-qualified filenames for
files varying per arch, as in /usr/bin/i586-linux-gnu-gdb, which would
allow to co-install them with ones from foreign architectures, like
/usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-gdb.
The maintainer scripts could then use alternatives to create the gdb
and other slave filenames, and assign a higher priority to the native
architecture (the one defined by «dpkg --print-architecture»).
In addition this would give a 64-bit package on 32-bit arches that's
fully functional, as currently the gdb64 packages lack for example
python support, among other things.
What do you think?
Thanks,
Guillem
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