more -- ix86 packages on x86_64 system

[Gene Czarcinski]

Looking over the responses to my original message, there does not appear to be 
any "good" solution to the problem of installing ix86 packages on a x86_64 
system in order to support some arbitrary 32-bit application.  Furthermore, 
Jason Knight's comments about his experience of installing packages is not 
promising since it appears that he very easily screwed up his system while 
attempting to install extra ix86 (32 bit) library packages.

My summary of the situation --

1. We can expect to have only the "basic" set of ix86 packages as part of the 
x86_64 distribution and installation.  For example, glibc-devel is likely to 
be included since it is needed to build the gcc packages from the src.rpm.

2. Just putting "all" of the potentially needed ix86 packages into the x86_64 
distribution is not really practical ... just too many packages.  
Furthermore, this would greatly expand the required disk space needed to 
install.  In addition, this would only really "solve" things for an 
everything install ... installing new ix86 packages post install is still a 
problem.

3.  Manually installing packages is only practical if a small number of 
packages are involved.  This can be greatly helped if "clean" packages are 
installed (packages which do not involve any binary program executables or 
other files with the same pathname but differing contents between ix86 and 
x86_64).

4. My expectation that all (many) of the ix86 packages can be converted to be 
clean (splitting the rpms) is very low ... just too many packages to be high 
priority.  We may get developers to address a very few of these but that will 
be a struggle.  Alternatively, we may be able to create some "specially 
built" packages which do not include the conflicts (only the needed 
libraries) if the number is very small.

My conclusion: not promising.  My challenge to anyone thinking of a solution 
is to install 32-bit galeon on a x86_64 system.

What can be/could be done:

The only idea that occurs to me involves up2date/yum/system-config-packages.  
Could one/all of these packages be enhanced to properly handle the addition 
(new installation) of an ix86 package on an existing x86_64 system ... to 
install the package but then fix things so that if a x86_64 package was 
already installed it would be re-installed (or things otherwise fixed up) so 
that the result was the proper set of x86_64 files plus the ix86 libraries.

The problem with spending any resources to solve this problem is that it 
appears to me to be only needed for the amd64 (and whatever Intel is calling 
their version) platform.  Other platforms which support simultaneous 32-bit 
and 64-bit applications do not appear to have the problem since they seem to 
be mostly 32-bit with a few 64-bit applications.  So the question is:  How 
important is it to support arbitrary 32-bit applications running on a x86_64 
system?  Is it important enough to spend time developing the capability.

Comments?  Suggestions?

Gene