Bug#596899: Please unblock ia32-libs/20101012
On 11/09/2010 06:35 PM, Michael Gilbert wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 09:05:16 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
>> Michael Gilbert <michael.s.gilbert@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Well, it's more like one hundred packages, but nevertheless, a very
>>> large number. Obviously its a trade off, just like everything else in
>>> this world. Either take the easy road and continue to provide this
>>> messy monolithic package that doesn't get any security updates, or take
>>> the hard road to get something more supportable but forces additional
>>> work on 100 maintainers. I personally think the latter is more
>>> appropriate/ideal even though its more work. Obviously opinions will
>>> vary.
>>
>> The long-term solution is multiarch and allowing people to install 32-bit
>> packages directly on 64-bit systems, which is why people haven't been
>> willing to much effort into making the current system work better. We
>> keep expecting multiarch to be in the next Debian release.
>
> I just did some reading up on multiarch. It looks like its been in
> development since around 2004 (i.e. before sarge was released). With
> such an oft-delayed process (4 releases including squeeze), I wonder
> what the probability of it being ready for wheezy is? Is it time to
> work toward a less hackish solution for ia32-libs since multiarch may be
> unlikely for wheezy based on past performance?
Definitely not! ia32-libs should die after squeeze. multiarch is taking
long, very long indeed. Though most of it's progress was made during the
squeeze cycle, the main missing bit to really start using multiarch is
dpkg AFAICS. I still think it's very unfortunate that dpkg maintainers
find time to work on all sorts of new features when multiarch support is
not finalised yet, but maybe that's just my perception on it.
Cheers
Luk
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