Re: ia32-libs transition

[Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>]

Jonas Meurer <jonas@freesources.org> writes:

> On 30/06/2009 Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>> > Did anyone who isn't on crack get to see 'ia32-apt-get.preinst' and
>> > 'ia32-apt-get.postinst' before they were perpetrated upon an unsuspecting
>> > populace? Reading them in the process of trying to unfuck my system made me
>> > feel more than slightly ill.
>> 
>> Since my package was sponsored I would assume at least one other
>> person looked over it. You are the first to mention illness. I can't
>> change what it does. But do you have suggestion to improve how it does
>> things in preinst/postinst/postrm?
>
> it seems like the whole ia32 transition is a major illness.
>
> apt-get now installs random packages from i386 over the ones from amd64 in
> case that the version from i386 is superior. that just happened for
> initscripts sysvinit sysvinit-utils and rar on my system.
>
> why the heck does ia32-apt-get replace amd64 packages with i386 ones at
> all? is this an attempt to slowly migrate amd64 systems to i386 ones?
>
> greetings,
>  jonas

Because you didn't read the NEWS. Given the number of people that
don't read NEWS or have generally been surprised of ia32-apt-get
introducing 32bit packages to the system the next upload of
ia32-apt-get will be more explicit about this and only activate after
the user confirmed its use.

Actualy some constructive discussion on irc about this problem has
revealed a possible solution. Binary packages, those that don't get an
ia32- prefix, can easily be filtered out of the Packages files
preventing any replacement of 64bit packages with 32bit. That also
prevents things like skype to be listed though. So I intend to add a
debconf question:

  Do you want to
  [ ] abort installing ia32-apt-get
  [ ] only allow 32bit libraries
  [ ] allow 32bit libraries and binaries
      (DANGER: see docs about pining)

or something of that sort.


Will that satisfy you?

MfG
        Goswin