Multiarch crazyiness

[Jon Masters]

On Mon, 2007-10-22 at 09:52 +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> Jon Masters wrote:
> >  It obviously was a kludge. And a great one - Jeremy, Bill, and other
> > *smart* people (so don't get me wrong guys!) had to come up with a
> > solution at some point when this came up, but it's long since time to
> > take a big breath and think about a longer term fix.
> > 
> > Can we agree that needs to happen? If so, I'll happily actually get
> > involved in implementing a fix, as I've said to these folks in face to
> > face conversations about multilib before!
> 
> Why don't we just install 64 bit packages (on x86-64)[1]?  I've been 
> running Fedora 7 & 8 systems like this for ages without any problems.  I 
> can't see why it isn't the default, with kludges only for the people who 
> want 32 bit packages on their shiny 64 bit processor.

> [1] Or just 32 bit packages on ppc64.

It's still going to be the case that many people will want packages from
both, for a long time, and in some cases that makes more sense - it's
not always better to have 64-bit versions.

For these reasons, I think a better solution is needed, and needed as a
matter of urgency. That solution should also be well documented, with
very obvious policy document(s) - not just mailing list posts - that
make it very easy for package maintainers to understand. It really is
time to fix this properly - can we get a working group setup?

Jon.