Re: dual boot different platforms from the same partitions in a host

[Tom Vajzovic <vizaviza@yahoo.co.uk>]

Hi

On Thu, 2007-05-10 at 09:16 -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> On Thu, May 10, 2007 at 01:25:00PM +0100, Tom Vajzovic wrote:

>> I would like to dual boot Linux i386 and amd64.
>> 
>> My amd64 processor will run either quite happily, but not at the same
>> time.
>> 
>> I think perhaps that I  need separate /usr partitions, and I hope
>> that at least /home could be shared, and maybe /etc and /var as well.
>> 
>> The reason to do this is that I sometimes want to run binary only
>> libraries and apps that are 32 bit, but the rest of the time I want
>> to use the full 64.

> I don't think anything except /home can be shared.  amd64 has 64-bit
> programs in /usr and i386 has programs by the same name in the same
> place.  /etc is different.
> 
> Did you know that there are 32-bit libs available to run most 32-bit
> apps under amd64?  
> 
> Perhaps you should tell us what you really want to do under amd64 that
> you can't at the moment.

I have a header & binary only library (.so) that is compiled for i386.
I need it to control a piece of lab equipment.

How can I compile my program and link it with the 32 bit libraries?  

Do I have to compile my whole program with a 32 bit target?  How do I do
that?

Alternatively can I have some .o compiled for amd64 and linking to the
64 bit c library  and other libraries, and still call the functions in
my 32 bit library?  How do I do that?

Thanks

Tom

PS to Doug: sorry for the two copies of this, the first time I replied I
assumed that the Reply-To would have put the message on list.