On Sun, Apr 15, 2007 at 01:21:06PM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote: > Rob Andrews <rob@choralone.org> writes: > > > On 14-Apr-2007 16:14.22 (BST), Al Stone wrote: > > > I personally have no idea why there are ia32-libs on ia64. The > > > only possible reasons I can think of are: (1) older versions of > > > the processor did have a small x86 processor on chip so it could > > > execute x86 binaries, or (2) it allows one to use the Intel ia32el > > > layer (a software layer to emulate x86 on ia64, but unfortunately > > > proprietary code). > > > > I don't think ia32el is in Debian (nothing in pool/i/ for contrib or > > non-free). It should be able to be in non-free if someone would be willing to package it. From Intel's download page: "Most current versions of Linux* operating systems for Itanium architecture include IA-32 EL. Please refer to vendor documentation to determine if IA-32 EL is included in the version that you are using and if any actions are required to turn on IA-32 EL." Haven't actually read the license, though. > > The wikipedia article on ia64 sheds a little light, and indicates that point > > 1 is probably correct (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ia64#IA-32_support): > > > > "The original IA-64 architecture included support for IA-32 instructions > > and could therefore run the many thousands of applications available for > > x86-based systems. This can eliminate the added expense and complexity of > > deploying a second server or porting code from IA-32 to IA-64. However, > > performance was slower than for native IA-64 code and about 50% slower > > than for the same IA-32 code running on x86 servers of the time." > > > > It goes on to say that it was removed starting with Montecito in July 2006, > > and replaced with emulation instead. ...and that emulation is free-as-in-beer at Intel's site, and is faster than the ia32 on ia64 hardware ever was. http://www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/93086.htm http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/219773.htm > > I'm giving up on the thought of building i386 binaries on ia64 in that case! There's also a command to get uname to report the desired arch (needed for building some things, like a kernel), but I can't recall it now. Personally, I've replaced ia32-libs with a chroot setup because I needed a lib or two not in the package; maintaining my own ia32-libs isn't as easy as maintaining a chroot. The chroot is only chroot'ed into for installation and upgrades; everything else just works on PATH and /etc/ld.so.conf. -- Rob
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