[Pkg-ia32-libs-maintainers] Bug#694758: Bug#694758: ia32-libs: cannot upgrade

[Michael Shuler]

Thanks for the additional info!

On 12/04/2012 07:41 AM, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> It should be noted that ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk now depend on the
> libs they previously contained as binary copies. So while you get many
> new libraries they should basically balance out with the contents
> dropped from ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk itself, i.e. you already had
> most of those irrelevant libs but didn't know it. Doesn't balance perfectly
> but roughly. There are some packages that are now in the dependency chain
> that should have been in ia32-libs or ia32-libs-gtk in squeeze but
> nobody ever cared enough. Also anything only mentioned as recommends will
> probably be new. Again if nobody cared they weren't added to ia32-libs
> or ia32-libs-gtk.

I mentioned this observation in a previous note to this bug, after
spending some time digging around the previous monolithic
ia32-libs(-gtk) and comparing to the new libraries pulled in with the
current version.

> If you want to minimize the amount of new packages there are 2 things
> you can do:
> 
> 1) Turn of recommends when upgrading the 32bit stuff.
> 
> 2) Replace those amd64 packages with 32bit software (those that depend
> on ai32-libs or ia32-libs-gtk) with the i386 packages that depend on
> the specific 32bit libraries needed. After that you can remove ia32-libs
> and ia32-libs-gtk instead of upgrading it.

If it helps anyone else, my only dependency on ia32-libs(-gtk) was skype
(I know, I know.. :).  The latest skype package 4.1.0.20-1 (listed on
their download page as "Debian 7.0 (multiarch)") does, in fact drop the
dependency on ia32-libs for the individual libraries needed.

I removed skype 4.0.something, removed ia32-libs(-gtk) and all my
installed :i386 packages (~80 of them), installed skype_4.1.0.20-1 with
--no-install-recommends, and now only have 46 :i386 packages installed.
 This was helpful advice - thanks!  This should cut down on unnecessary
future library upgrades from all the ia32-libs :i386 deps.

> Thank you for testing the upgrade even if I'm afraid we can't do anything
> about the bloat.

That was really my mistake - I didn't realize how much was in the
monolithic package, prior to the change to a metapackage.  You are
correct that they are roughly the same set, and it should make for
smaller updates over the lifetime of the full set of dependencies.

Thanks for all the hard work!

-- 
Kind regards,
Michael