[Gllug] Debian 32/64 bitness

[Peter Grandi]

[ ... monocultures on 11 architectures ... :-> ]

>> Now the Popularity Contest is not about a fully
>> representative sample, but the numbers are stark and sad.

doug> Those numbers are completely unrepresentative of anything
doug> IMO, so they can hardly be stark or sad. "Pointless",
doug> would be better.

We are all entitled to purely declamatory opinions...

But I reckon that a difference of a few orders of magnitude
cannot be called "Pointless" just like that.

When even a biased sample (and we can all think of likely biases
here) has such stark differences (nearly 2 orders of magnitude)
I reckon they send a powerful message, even if quantitatively
inaccurate. Especially as those almost 2 order of magnitude
sadly parallel widely reported market shares.

[ ... ]

>> Well, it does not have to be solved _perfectly_, or even
>> ''cleverly'' (e.g. the long awaited multiarch proposal), just
>> better, and other distributions have done so with other
>> package managers.

doug> This is Debian, of course it has to be perfect :)

OK for the smilie, but then the #1 retort is: By when? :-)

Other possible maliciously evil :-) retorts to «has to be
perfect»:

* So are you putting the finishing touches to ''multiarch''
  right now? :-)

* So is Debian changing its name to "Dubuntu"? :-)

* So is it switching to RPM/Yum? :-)

PS:

* Unnecessary bias declaration: I hate DPKG (and I think that I
  have rational reasons for that, but it is so intense :-> that
  perhaps I am being irrational about it). APT is not that bad
  (and I have used it even with other distros), but it too has
  annoying limitations.

* I have been dreaming for many years that Debian switched from
  DPKG to RPM (which is far from perfect but...). Fat chance,
  but should then its name change to it Debshat? And if RH
  switched to DPKG/APT, should it be renamed Redian? :-)

* Besides I think too that, because of the common monoculture,
  various ''multiarch'' approaches, while being desirable, in
  practice are not that important; but I was asked by the OP why
  and in which ways they were not yet supported by DPKG/APT, but
  by other PMs.

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