Re: multiarch status update
Peter 'p2' De Schrijver wrote:
> > > Being able to install multiple versions is some use to multiarch, but
> > > could also be used for other things, such if two packages provide the
> > > same binary (git for example).
> > > Or to install multiple 'version 'numbers' of the same package.
> >
> > The big problem then is when to install multiple versions of a binary?
> > How should the depends decide when that is needed or wanted and when
> > not? Esspecialy when different versions are available per
> > architecture.
> >
>
> One way of doing this would be to make a binary a special directory
> which contains the actual binary files for the architectures the
> binaries exist. AIX 1.x did this and allowed transparent execution of
> binaries in a heterogenous cluster. So if you would start a binary on
> IA32 AIX machine which only existed in a mainframe AIX version, the
> system would automatically start the binary on one of the mainframe AIX
> nodes in the cluster. If an IA32 AIX binary was available, it would
> locally start this binary. The 'binary directory' had the name, the
> binary would normally have. The actual binary files get the architecture
> name they implement as the filename. Eg: there would be an /bin/ls
> directory containing 2 files : i386, ibm370.
>
> > How would programs or user specifiy what binary to call? How would
>
> You could explicitly start /bin/ls/i386 I think (which would fail if
> you did it on the wrong machine).
The obvious problem here: The scheme is incompatible with non-multiarched
software. It would at least require a package manager which specialcases
..../bin directory, a one-time conversion which moves the binaries, and
some trickery for alternatives. Plus some more things which don't come
to mind immediately, I guess.
Thiemo
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