[CentOS] rpms for 32 bit

Thu Jul 26 17:23:57 UTC 2007
Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org>

Tony Barratt wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> Need to install the required rpmz to support 32bit apps on 64bit Centos 4.
> How to find out which rpmz are needed?

Probably the easiest way is to first make sure you have a .rpmmacros
file (in at least root's home directory, also any users that you
routinely use to solve dep issues) ... in that file, put this line:

%_query_all_fmt %%{name}-%%{version}-%%{release}.%%{arch}

That will make all rpm queries show you the $ARCH of the RPMS ...

Then, you should be able to bring the file in question onto the machine
and do:

yum localinstall <filename>

---OR---

If the packages are in the x86_64 repos now, just:

yum install <name>.i386

There are some i386 packages inside the x86_64 tree, if you are trying
to run others (specifically from 3rd party repos) then you are going to
have issues if you try to install the i386 and x86_64 programs at the
same time because of shared files (files that exist in both the i386 and
x86_64 repos).  Most of these shared files are in /usr/share/doc or /etc
.. though, maybe also /usr/include and others.

The way shared files work is that the shared file MUST have the same
md5sum on both $ARCHs (i386 and x86_64) ... which for doc files that are
generated via texinfo or other things is quite hard to accomplish.  You
can minimize shared file problems by installing all i386 duplicate
packages with this option:

rpm -Uvh --excludedocs <package>

This is quite a PITA because you loose the ability to use yum for
installs or updates.

You could also use the "tsflags=excludedocs" in your /etc/yum.conf file
... but then you get no documentation from any i386 OR x86_64 packages
that you install.

Either way ... running 32bit packages on x86_64 machines is a royal
PITA, and I would recommend that you use a 32bit OS where you know you
will need 32bit packages if at all possible.

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes


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