On 11/25/05, Noah Roberts <roberts.noah@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 11/25/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > There aren't too many limitations on the use of non-multimedia > > application code in portage. The trick seems to be deciding when to > > use ~x86 and ~amd64. That's a bit of a frustration but not a major > > hinderance. > > I can answer that. You never use ~x86 on an amd64 running in 64 bit > mode. It can cause serious issues if you do. You may not have run > into such issues but they are there and I have (first time I installed > I decided to take that shortcut as well). The correct way to install > code is to use ~amd64 if you need to. If it is not there then you add > it if you really want the program but keep in mind that it means that > the program very well might not work on amd64 or may be incredibly > unstable. OK, if this is the case (cannot use ~x86 and ~amd64 on the same machine) then my impression, from the set of apps I'm running right now, is there there is a lot of software I cannot depend on. There are a large number of apps that don't work unless compiled with ~x86. If I cannot use that then I cannot run maybe 30-40% of what I want to run. Of course, I've not hit the problems you're describing. I've been lucky I suppose. > > Why not use ~x86? Think of the following scenario: > > * app-theoretical has ~x86 but not ~amd64 in the latest release > because it has been reported as unstable by most people.. > * app-theoretical depends on lib-theoretical. > * You have lib-theoretical installed but it is a version previous to > the reqs on this latest release of app-theoretical - many of your > programs require this lib - you have a *stable* install of this > library. > * The new release of lib-theoretical does not work on amd64 and is > known to have many issues for many people. Therefore the keyword > ~amd64 is not included. > > You run emerge on app-theoretical with the ~x86 accept flags and it > replaces lib-theoretical with something that does not work. Not even > updating your programs will fix the issue. > > It also causes problems when you mix flags like that because of the > way emerge chooses to install requirements. You just don't do it or > eventually your system will start to act shitty. Gentoo has a good > article on this in one of their FAQ or something for the amd64. > > Thanks. Interesting info. Cheers, Mark
