Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 20:58:20 +0200
To: Josselin Mouette <josselin.mouette@ens-lyon.org>
From: José Luis Tallón <jltallon@adv-solutions.net>
Subject: Re: Debian for x86-64 (AMD Opteron)
At 20:23 21/04/2003 +0200, you wrote:
Le lun 21/04/2003 à 19:52, José Luis Tallón a écrit :
> IMVHO, there is an intermediate alternative: why not ...
> ... create a new x86-64 architecture
> ... tweak dpkg so that ${DEB_ARCH}=="x86-64" admits both i386 and x86-64
> binaries;
> Naturally, x86-64 ("native") would be preferred to i386 when
available. If
> there is no x86-64 binary, use i386 instead; Sky is blue, life is good ...
This won't work, because you can't mix 32 and 64 bits code or libraries.
I think the appropriate solution is to make it a completely new arch,
with 32 bits compatibility libraries (at least glibc and xlibs) allowing
to run 32 bits proprietary software.
Correct me if i'm wrong -- you can't run 64bits software with 32bit
libraries, but you can run 64bit and 32bit processes concurrently, right?
Then: package foo64 would require libfoo64 -- apt-get will do the hard work
If there is no foo64, select foo [foo32] instead, which will pull libfoo
[libfoo32] from the archive if needed.
[ sonames would need to be tweaked in the 64bit versions, and some
adjustments might be necessary in the format of 'control' files ]
My point was on easing/accelerating availability of an x86-64 "port" of
Debian.
I most probably am overlooking something, however if there'd be a "PPC64"
or something ( transition to 64bits will happen sometime for all 32bit
architectures, i guess ), we would have most work already done... wouldn't we?
--
.''`. Josselin Mouette /\./\
: :' : josselin.mouette@ens-lyon.org
`. `' joss@debian.org
`- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom
Regards,
J.L.