David Mosberger writes: >>>>>> On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 11:48:56 +0200, Andreas Jaeger said: > > Andreas> Just a clarification: AMD64 [1] has most of user space > Andreas> 64-bit. Only a few applications are 32-bit - but this > Andreas> lib/lib64 is the best way to handle 32-bit packages (no > Andreas> need to change files). > > >> Moving to lib32 and lib64 makes sense in that environment. > > Andreas> Not lib32, just lib. > > That may be a reasonable solution for x86-64 but I don't think it is > for ia64. What's needed is multi-architecture support, not bi-arch > support. Let's consider some possible bi-arch setups: > > contents of: > > host arch: /usr/lib /usr/lib64 > ---------- > x86-64 x86 x86-64 > ia64 x86 ia64 > ppc64 ppc32 ppc64 > > So far, so good. But what if x86-64 emulation support were added to > Intel's IA32EL? With the bi-arch-logic, that's either not supported > or you'd have to move the ia64-stuff _again_ from /usr/lib64 into some > other place. Thanks, but no thanks. Not to mention that trying to > move ia64 libraries from /usr/lib to /usr/lib64 is almost certainly > worse than any ill it could possibly cure. > > Even if you didn't in the above scenario, it wouldn't surprise me if > the ppc64 folks also wanted to be able to run x86 binaries. If so, > the bi-arch approach won't work for them either, because /usr/lib is > already taken by ppc32. We're speaking here about native code - and not emulations. So, for ia64 I only see two native codes right now: 64-bit code as it is and code using 32-bit pointers (don't know how it's called). And x86 on ppc64 would be an emulation - not the native code - and would end somewhere else. Note that what your table says about ppc64 and x86-64 above is correct - and you can add s390, mips and sparc64 under the same line. Sparc has done this for a long time already. For details see the FHS. The big advantage on x86-64 [1] with lib and lib64 is that you can use existing 32-bit x86 rpms and install them - and they work without changes. I don't know what Red Hat is doing with x86 and with lib64 - and you really should ask them for clarification. Andreas Footnotes: [1] Note I'm more concerned with x86-64, I'm not advocating here anything for ia64. -- Andreas Jaeger, aj@suse.de, http://www.suse.de/~aj SUSE Linux AG, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126