[arch-dev-public] Multilib on Archlinux x86_64

[Aaron Griffin]

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Thomas Bächler <thomas at archlinux.org> wrote:
> Andreas Radke schrieb:
>> I give you a strict -1 for any 32bit compat stuff in our officially
>> supported repos as I already told you in private discussions. I've
>> spent several weeks if not even months to make it as clean as possible.
>
> What you are saying is that by adding an extra capability (again, separate
> repository, nothing to pollute core or extra in any way), we destroy the
> clean-ness of your so clean (and yeah, it is clean) system. That's just
> irrational.
>
> The fact that you don't quote a single line from my posting tells me that
> you haven't even read any of my propositions. Why don't you give technical
> arguments instead of making this personal?
>
> The reason I want to maintain this on our ftp is that I want it to be easily
> accessible to our devs and users, as I can't maintain it alone. The reason I
> don't want this (at least the core of it) in community is that I want it to
> be separate from the rest.
>
> Besides, unless you want to maintain the packages or use them by activating
> the repository in pacman.conf, you won't even notice it's there.

I have to side with Thomas here on the fact that no technical
arguments were brought up. That irks me just a bit - that "no because
no" seems to be a valid reason. It's not.

That said, I am very very neutral on this. Thomas' plan does not
integrate anything at all, it just puts some 32bit libs in a parallel
repo for people to use if they want to (read: users can choose). A
pristine system is all well and good, but as we can all tell from the
existence of the lib32- packages in community, it's not what everyone
wants. What Thomas is proposing is keeping the pristine system
pristine unless someone wants to install the 32bit stuff. I don't have
a problem with this rationale.

*But* I think it is a bit important that we look at why we're doing
this - for a handful (5 or 6) closed source apps. flash, teamspeak,
skype, google-earth (and wine). It seems like a lot of work for a
handful of apps. That's why I'm neutral on this. I think the rationale
is sound, but it sounds like a lot of forward MOTION for little
forward PROGRESS.