A report from the RPM summit [LWN.net]

A report from the RPM summit

Posted Oct 12, 2009 7:31 UTC (Mon) by niner (subscriber, #26151)
In reply to: A report from the RPM summit by jch
Parent article: A report from the RPM summit

But that sounds like it wouldn't allow a crossgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit or back which is a
pity, especially with Debian's good upgrade reputation.

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A report from the RPM summit

Posted Oct 12, 2009 11:14 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

You're right that it doesn't allow that directly, though it can be done with some work if you know what you're doing.

A bigger problem is that trying to run 32-bit binaries with non-trivial library dependencies on Debian is an exercise in pain. Debian's 32-bit support is *really bad*. Most libraries don't have 32-bit versions available, and those that do are just the binaries rammed into a couple of huge ia32- mega-packages.

There are proposals and frequent discussions about multilib, but no visible progress (unless you count major breakage for a month or so earlier this year), and it's one of those subjects which is practically guaranteed to start a flamewar if mentioned on debian-devel.