[Gllug] Debian 32/64 bitness (was Memory usage)

Peter Grandi pg_gllug at gllug.for.sabi.co.UK
Thu Oct 13 14:18:35 UTC 2005


>>> On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:50:08 +0200, "Martin A. Brooks"
>>> <martin at hinterlands.org> said:

[ ... ]

martin> There are actually 2 methods Debian uses to support 32
martin> bit apps.  The first is the previously mentioned 32 bit
martin> chroot.  The second (and more elegant, imo) is using a
martin> wrapper called "linux32" to set the execution domain.
martin> i.e.  'linux32 /path/to/your/32bitbinary'.

Both are far from necessary, and such workarounds are needed
only because of fundamental, stupid limitations in DPKG and/or
APT, and consequently equally stupid parts of Debian packaging
policy and practice (the filesystem standard and some established
dumb practices are also to blame).

  For example, ask yourself: why is the major version of many
  '.deb's repeated as a suffix to the package name? Why not
  add the name of the architecture as another suffix? :-)

But since these are hallowed icons of Debianness very few people
are prepared to admit that there are any significant problems
with them (in particular that DPKG is fairly terrible overall),
so they won't be fixed, and here we are.

[ ... ]

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