Re: arch prefix in packages names.

[Reco <recoverym4n@enotuniq.net>]

	Hi.

On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 12:35:56PM +0200, aprekates wrote:
> Looking at dpkg -l output i noticed:
> 
> ii  binutils   2.31.1-16    amd64        GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities
> ii  binutils-common:amd64      2.31.1-16  amd64        Common files for the GNU assembler, ..
> 
> why dpkg -l adds the :arch prefix in some package names and not in others?

If a package has "Multiarch: same" flag (binutils-common is one of
these) it means it can be installed several times with the different
architectures.
dpkg shows such packages with architecture suffix (not _prefix_), to
help the user distinguish packages with the same name, but different
architectures.
Packages that has "Multiarch: foreign" (i.e. architecture-independent
ones), or packages that lack Multiarch flag are shown without
architecture suffix.

"apt show" does not show Multiarch flag for some reason, but "dpkg -s"
does.

Reco