Running 32 bit binaries on 64 bit systems

[Bill Davidsen]

Gordon Messmer wrote:
> Bill Davidsen wrote:
>> Although I'm having this on FC11 I had it on FC6, so it's hardly "new" 
>> or "testing" material. The problem with trying to run 32 bit binaries 
>> is that they take vast numbers of libraries which have to be located 
>> and installed, and generally one at a time.
> 
> 
> find . -type f -perm /0001 | xargs file | grep ELF | cut -f1 -d: \
>     | xargs ldd | grep "not found" | awk '{print $1}' \
>     | sort | uniq | xargs yum provides
> 

This is similar to what I was doing, other than minor issues like my use of 
"sort -u" instead of the pipe, and isolating the ".i586" answers out of 
"provides." Unfortunately a lot of other stuff doesn't get caught that way, so 
the application starts and then streams error messages about gtk and gnome 
things it expects. I repeated the provides and install process, having used 
"script" to save the warnings, and I found that installing 32bit window managers 
over the 64bit parts results in a system which only boots in single user mode.

At that point I mumbled a few choice "technical terms" under my breath and 
decided that since there was no particular benefit from running 64bit and a big 
drain on my time to mix modes or port software, I will regard this as a learning 
experience and retry with fc12 or later. I have nothing which runs measurably 
better with the 64 bit, so I'll save that for play and test machines and stay 
32bit for a while. At some point this summer after fc11 has been out for a bit, 
I'll drop in a 32bit version under KVM and run that for 32 bit apps.

Thanks to everyone who provided ideas on this, it seems that some applications 
don't play well in this way.

-- 
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