[pacman-dev] $ARCH suffix on packages

[Essien Ita Essien]

Roman Kyrylych wrote:
> 2006/10/11, VMiklos <vmiklos at frugalware.org>:
>   
>> On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 09:48:21AM -0500, Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>     
>>> What is gained by having this suffix?
>>>       
>> all my reasons are already mentioned here, so i just would like to sum
>> up them:
>>
>> 1) protecting users from installing x86_64 packages on i686, or so
>>     
>
> Heh? $ARCH suffix is just a part of filename. Only arch=(...) in
> .PKGINFO really should matter (and "protect"). Or I'm missing
> something?
>
>   
yes, you're missing something :)

Why we're not complaining right now is that there is really no large 
community using pacman. If there was a Non-ArchLinux/Frugalware site 
that keeps thirdparty pacman pkgs (something akin to rpmfind.net, etc), 
you'll immedietly see why its neccessary for the person downloading.

Also, if like me, you keep having to build packages for different 
architectures, and keep them around on your system, yes, you can put 
them in different directories, but its slightly a more resilient design 
if the packages carry the info with them programmatically (via 
arch=(foobar) in PKGBUILD) and visually foobar-x.y-z.ppc.pkg.tar.gz.

Its not exactly a show stopper, but its a *good* decision (i see more 
advantages than disadvantages).
<snip>