[arch-general] multiarch support like debian, pro and cons?

[Jan Alexander Steffens]

The big difference is that we need to maintain a completely separate
second set of packages for multilib, while on Debian you use the exact
same packages whether i386 is your main architecture or a secondary
architecture. For us, the native i686 and x86_64 packages almost
always contain the same files cannot be installed at the same time.
Multilib packages are modified to only contain the needed i686 parts
in another directory (/usr/lib32) while depending on the native x86_64
package for the rest.

On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Eugenio M. Vigo <emvigo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> IMHO, we already have multiarch support; I come from Debian and I really
> don't see any substantial difference with what we have in Arch.
>
> OK, in Arch you have to add a repo, but in Debian you have to tell dpkg to
> accept "i386" as a secondary architecture (# dpkg --add-architecture i386).
> If you don't do that you don't get multiarch neither in Arch nor in Debian.
> Everything else is absolutely the same for both users and mantainers: user
> will still have to explicitly tell the package manager that they want a
> 32-bit package and mantainers will still have to compile packages for both
> architectures.
>
> I may be missing something, of course.
>
> Greeting,
> Eugenio
>
> 2014-09-26 1:08 GMT+02:00 Ranomier <ranomier at fragomat.net>:
>
>> I wrote my idea first on the irc, but i think here is a better place.
>>
>> The idea is to give up multiarch repo and make pacman and archlinux
>> capable for real multiarch support
>>
>> That means u could install a 32bit package from the normal repos core,
>> extra, community usw and not from multilib repo in 64bit arch. (example:
>> pacman -S firefox:i386)
>>
>> And that means package maintainer don´t have to maintain two 32bit
>> packages,
>> plus all 32bit package where available ob 64bit.
>>
>> What are u guys thinking, about that ideas.
>> What where the pro and cons, that i don´t see.
>>
>> Greetings,
>> Ranomier
>>