[arch-general] [arch-dev-public] The need for /lib64 - testing please

[Myra Nelson]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 23:48, Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I was looking at the /lib64 folder and wondering what it is really needed
> for...  It just seems clutter to me on a pure x86_64 system (or even with a
> multilib in lib32 folders like we have). As far as I can tell, most things
> are perfectly fine without that folder and its two symlinks.
>
> I would like some help testing removing this so I can get an idea of what
> issues people run into.  There is bound to be some software that makes
> assumptions about /lib64 in its installation and I would like to know (a)
> how widespread that issue is and (b) how hard it is to work around.
>
> If you want to try it out, just remove the /lib64 folder (after making sure
> it only has symlinks to ld-2.13.so and ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 in it. Run your
> system as usual for a while and report any issues you come across.
>
> Thanks,
> Allan
>


Allan:

The binary version of VirtualBox from AUR fails without the /lib64 folder.
I renamed the folder to /lib64.old, rebooted, the tried several apps. VBox
was the only failure, so far. I tried reinstalling it and rebuilding the kernel
modules to no avail. The message I get is:

"no such executable. /opt/var/VirtualBox does not exist" From memory
but very close.

I get the same message when I try to run any of the virtualbox progs.
The symlink in /usr/bin show to be broken. It shows an 'x' in the lower
right corner. If I rename /lib64.old to /lib64 it runs with no problems.
I haven't investigated any farther.

Myra


-- 
Life's fun when your sick and psychotic!