[arch-dev-public] Multilib on Archlinux x86_64

[Eric Belanger]

On Tue, 8 Jul 2008, Thomas Bächler wrote:

> Daniel Isenmann schrieb:
>>> *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.
>
> It is some work, but it is worth it. I want this because my computer is not 
> in an ideal world where I can simply port everything to 64 bit. This is the 
> real world, where I depend on applications I that need 32 bit environments, 
> even worse, I depend on applications that only work in x86_64/i386 multilib 
> environments.

I agree.  I've been using Thomas' multilib flash for the last few days and 
it works fine. The open source alternatives for flash doesn't work all the 
time. Having a working flash on x86_64 without going through the bother 
of a chroot is nice.


>
>> I really don't see the advantage to do this. Like Aaron said, there are
>> just about 5-6 apps, which are not available on x86_64. 
>
> See above.
>
>> The next thing
>> is, why should we support it official? 
>
> You are all so much about terminology. The "official" part is not what this 
> is about, but the "separate" part. I want a clean 32bit environment separate 
> from the "normal" repositories. And if you want to call it 
> [community-multilib] instead of multilib, fine.

I can't see why it would be OK to have this stuff in community but not in 
their own repo. As Thomas will be maintaining them in each case, the 
workload would be the same.

>
>> There are users out there which
>> are happy with the lib32-* packages in community. The TUs are doing a
>> great job on this. 
>
> You haven't really read my posting. The lib32-* packages are broken by 
> design. This is just a lot of work being done, about a good job ... that's 
> another category.
>
>> Why should we (we seen as dev) support those stuff?
>
> Well, because I want do, and so do others, possibly. Why should we not 
> support it?

I am interested in this stuff and would be willing in helping Thomas with 
the maintenance.

>
>> Why not bringing your stuff into community as a replacement for the
>> lib32-* packages? In my opinion setting up an additional official
>> repo just for multilib  is too much work, which isn't needed (MY
>> opinion).
>
> 1) Setting up a repository is 0 work.
> 2) Because it doesn't belong in community, it doesn't belong in extra or even 
> in core. It's a different thing and it should be in its own place.
>

Having it in it's seperate repo would also unclutter the community repo.
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