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@xxxxxxxxx> 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@xxxxxxxxxxxx>: > >> 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 >>
