x864_64 up2date gone wild.

[Gene C.]

On Tuesday 17 February 2004 19:08, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> Gene C. writes:
> > Yes but ..
> >
> > The practical matter is that you do need repository pointers to both
> > x86_64 and i386 respositories in the general case.  Updates for the gcc,
> > glibc, XFree86, etc. packages which include both x86_64 and ix86 packages
> > in the FC1 x86_64 distribution will require both sets of repositories.
> >
> > Hopefully, FC1 x86_64 final will be coming out shortly and that should
> > fix a lot of this stuff.
>
> Pointing up2date to a copy of the i386 update channel did resolve that
> dependency, but it then complained about an unresolved dependency on
> libgl.so, which I believe is a known issue.
>
> Still, this just feels wrong.  The x86_64 channel should include any
> necessary i386 stuff.

Don't disagree ... don't agree.  What this comes down to is that I do not know 
what the "right" answer is.

The Opteron/Athlon64 offers a interesting environment where both 64 bit and 32 
bit userlan application can run concurrently on the same hardware under the 
same OS.  This is creating an "interesting" situation for creating a x86_64 
distribution.

The SUSE approach seems to be to do everything it can in 64 bit mode but then 
provide a large 32 bit development/run-time capability (and an OS which is 
distributed on two DVDs (dual sided single DVD)).  The Red Hat/Fedora 
approach seems to be to do it all in 64 bit mode and provide a minimum of 32 
bit capability.  The "right" approach ... I do not know.

There is also the situation of up2date/rpm "doing the right thing" when both 
32 bit and 64 bit packages need to be installed.  While I believe that the 
"right thing" will be done during the initial system install, it is not clear 
to me that this be done post install when you need to install yet another 
ix86 package.  I have posted a message asking for clarification on this for 
install both the x86_64 and i686 version of openssl on a x86_64 system.  I 
have yet to see any response to my questions.

If you look in the archives for fedora-test list (or fedora-devel-list, I 
forget which), there is some discussion on how rpm "does the right thing".  
It is still not clear to me how to make sure that the "right thing: is done 
installing packages post system installation/creation.

All this said, I still believe that FC1 x86_64 looks very good and am looking 
forward to the FC2 x86_64.
-- 
Gene