| 6 August 09 |
ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk were used by a lot of people to run 32-bit software on an amd64 installation. They have been removed recently from the archive (bug #535645), on the basis they are hackish packages (which is true), and replaced by something even more hackish, ia32-apt-get.
ia32-apt-get failed to work correctly for a lot of persons, which broke a lot of systems. Fortunately Mark Hymers reintroduced the packages in the archive. In the long term, those packages will be replaced by multiarch support (planned for squeeze), which will allow, among other things, the installation of 32-bit packages on an amd64 installation.
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5 comments on 'ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk are back!'
August 7, 2009
Nice work. But I would not upgrade sid systems just yet as:
http://sidux.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-p-133932.html#133932
“Unfortunately, they do not work (tested with Skype, GoogleEarth, Wine, Crossover), and are useless therefore.”
By the way great job with the Debian News, hopefully it will be updated regularly.
August 7, 2009
When will we see an end to this ia32-libs mess? Is there some forecast available (not for long term multiarch, just ia32-libs working)?
Many people need to reliably run proprietary 32bit stuff, which is a key requirement in order to spread 64bit acceptance.
THX
August 12, 2009
Unfortunately you do have some of your facts wrong here.
Ia32-apt-get has been working beautifully for many people for over a year. In the same time ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk have not been updated, had security bugs and became uninstallable. The thing that did blow up was the fatefull version 18 upload that changed ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk to be provided by ia32-apt-get and which had some bugs in the maintainer scripts. The bugs where fixed within a day of being reported.
But in reaction to the outcry about ia32-apt-get that change was completly reverted by 02 Jul 2009 when Mark offered to maintain ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk. Bug #535645 was just about removing cruft packages that were no longer build from source. And the cruft was only removed a month later when Mark was ready to upload ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk again.
You are greatly exaggerating the number of systems that broke or failure of ia32-apt-get to work. There were only a handfull of instances where the installation of ia32-apt-get failed and another handfull where it did not work as the user expected. All of which were quickly fixed and ia32-apt-get made to work in less surprising ways. By that time ia32-apt-get had nearly 500 users and I got at least 10 mails from people thanking me for ia32-apt-get.
You are also wrong about the reason why ia32-apt-get was removed. If you read the later parts of bug #535645 and the discussion on the debian-ctte mailing list it becomes clear that it was removed because Steve Langasek fears it could impede multiarch. No other reason has been given as of today.
Not because it is buggy, not because it is a hack, not because it does not work. Because it competes with multiarch.
Yours,
Goswin von Brederlow
August 12, 2009
@Goswin:
Sadly, even if you were well meant with ia32-apt-get, the result was bad. Sometime happens.
You take some things too seriously
August 12, 2009
ia32-apt-get seemed like a neat system. It was working just fine for me. I was surprised to see it disappear.
So what is the official plan for multiarch (assuming there is one)? Where can one see what work is being done on it? Certainly ia32-libs is not a multiarch solution.