How to restrict package installation to x86_64

[John Morris]

Rainer Duffner wrote:
> Why are there so many i386-rpms in the x86_64 release anyway?
>
> Wouldn't it be better to make everything 64bit and just leave out the 
> few things that can't yet compile?
> Who needs OpenOffice on a server anyway?
Rainer,

I can't speak to your other questions, but I can tell you why our 
company needs i386 libs on x86_64.

Most of our servers run OSS in RPM form only, and on those machines we 
don't need the i386 libs.  But we have a few machines that run 
proprietary, vendor-supplied binaries that are compiled for the i386 
architecture only.  These software, though important, don't warrant 
their own i386 architecture servers.  In fact, we're running a lot of 
things in virtual servers, and with the vendor-supplied xen software, 
running i386 guests on an x86_64 host hasn't been very stable. 

So, this is one usage case for you.

    John