[Pkg-ia32-libs-maintainers] Bug#716860: Bug#716860: I have the same issue

[Goswin von Brederlow]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 01:37:13PM +0200, Thijs Kinkhorst wrote:
> On Wed, July 24, 2013 12:41, Rafał Pietrak wrote:
> > Thenx Thijs for quick response,
> >
> > I've looked up the debian-7 release notes, and its section on
> > multiarchitecture - regretibly it doesn't explain much (like: how to
> > have fine-controll over it), just confirms what you say.
> >
> > Anyway. I did:
> > # dpkg --add-architecture i386
> > # apt-get update
> >
> > but after that, my:
> > # apt-get install ia32-libs
> > ... offers me to install tons of 32-bit software&libraries; quite like
> > it was now necessary to double my system for 32-bit architecture. I'm
> > quite reluctant to let it go.
> 
> This is expected. The difference is that in the past you "just" installed
> ia32-libs but that package was 250MB big and contained all those
> libraries, now just the individual libraries are installed.
> 
> > isn't there a way (any way) to install just the required packages
> > (required, by the offending thrd party software) ?
> 
> There is, that's the whole advantage of Multiarch over the old ia32-libs.
> The 3rd party just needs to change their package to not depend on
> ia32-libs but only on the relevant 32 bit libraries they need.
> 
> 
> Thijs

Usualy 3rd party don't need to change their package, they simply need
to remove the amd64 package and tell users to use the i386 package
instead. Under multiarch this now installs just fine on an amd64
system and pulls in the 32bit libraries the package depends on and
only those. No need for the blanked coverage ia32-libs has do to.


In case 3rd party provides an apt repository you should limit that
repository to only 32bit by using the following syntax in
/etc/apt/sources.list:

deb [ arch=i386 ] http://3rd.party.server/path suite component ...

The "arch=i386" tells apt to only look at the i386 Packages file for
that entry. This avoids getting an error if 3rd party has no amd64
packages and avoids using the ia32-libs based packages if they do.

MfG
	Goswin