Running 32 bit binaries on 64 bit systems

[Bill Davidsen]

Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> On Wed, 13 May 2009 16:51:49 -0400
> Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com> wrote:
> 
>> Kevin Fenzi wrote:
>>> On Wed, 13 May 2009 15:23:39 -0400
>>> Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> ...snip...
>>>> Is there some tool, and can we tell search engines about it?
>>>>
>>> yum?
>>>
>>> yum install package.i586 
>>>
>>> should pull in the needed 32bit packages. 
>>>
>> That actually just generates a "no package package.i586 available"
>> did you think it would load all the libraries or something? You
>> really need the package name, which is what I need to extract from
>> the binary.
>>
>> I already tried installing lib*.i586, some libraries are in packages
>> which don't have lib* names.
> 
> Sorry, I misunderstood your query. 
> 
Not a problem, I'm grateful for any attempt at help!

> You have some local 32bit non rpm packaged binary and you want to
> install all the 32bit packages that provide the dependencies it needs?
> 
I have rather a number of these which I'm testing for various projects (some 
clients, some open source). They have in common being available in binary 
without me having to do anything.

> I fear you will have to use 'ldd' to try and pull those out (which
> won't always get them all, as there may be other things that you need
> that are not library dependencies). 
> 
You are *so* right.  :-(

> This would really be the same problem if you had a non packaged 64 bit
> binary lump. 
> 
> Do you have source for this thing? Can you package it properly? 
> 
It's not one thing, some are never ported to 64 bit and undoubtedly have issues, 
and all change rapidly. I was hoping for a tool to do the ldd and 'provides' 
stuff, by hand is vastly time consuming. I started swearing when I tried to run 
the beta 2.0 of Seamonkey, then decided to try a client package as "easier" 
(wasn't), so I tried installing lib*.i586 and found libraries will be packages 
with other names... Bah!

I hesitate to even think of packaging something changing at least daily, and I 
would have to do it on other machines, a laptop running off a USB 4GB flash is 
many things, but a development environment it is not.

I'm fairly started in developing a tool to do what I need, we shall see if I 
have to do over in perl, maybe I need to write a bash2perl script converter, I 
do that too often. ;-)

Thanks for the info anyway.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot