Backward Compatibility

[Mike A. Harris]

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Guillaume Chazarain wrote:

>As I understand it the lib64/ thing is for old 32 bit
>binary apps to run flawlessly side by side with x86_64
>apps.  Does Fedora Core intent to provide 32 bit libs
>for each package ? I understand it raises some packaging
>problems but otherwise it defeats the compatibility
>advantage.
>
>OTOH, if we assume there are really few 32 bit apps that
>will survive in an 64 bit installation, then why not
>keeping lib/ for 64 bit libs and installing 32 bit stuff
>in /usr/i386-pc-linux-gnu/{bin,lib,...} ?
>
>I may have missed something since I don't currently own
>an amd64, just anticipating.

'lib64' is used on AMD64, PPC64, and s390x as an official 
standard of where those architectures 64bit libraries exist.  
This is not a Red Hat specific thing, but is a global standard.

You should be able to install Fedora Core x86 rpms on your AMD64 
OS installation to get 32bit compatibility.  No recompilation 
should be required, just install the 32bit libs, and you should 
be able to run 32bit apps.


-- 
Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat