[CentOS] centos 5.5 x86_64 mixing with i386 rpms

Robert Heller heller at deepsoft.com
Fri Dec 17 18:42:57 UTC 2010


At Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:23:36 +0200 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> Good day,
> 
> What will happen if on x86_64 some i386 rpms get installed, please.

Depends.  It is in fact *normal* for i[3456]86 *libraries* to be
installed on a CentOS/RHEL x86_64 system (many are installed by
default).  It is possible to also install i[3456]86 *programs* as well,
and this works just fine, since A) the x86_64 kernel/program loader is
just as happy to run 32-bit programs as to run 64-bit programs and B)
the various i[3456]86 *libraries* are also generally (or can be)
installed.  Installing a i686 *kernel* or *kernel module* is pretty
much useless, unless you reboot with the 32-bit kernel.  At which point
your *64-bit* programs won't work :-(.  You don't want to do that.  For
some programs/packages, installing the 32-bit version might be ill
advised, but I don't think things will necessarily break.

What you should *not* do is try to upgrade a 32-bit OS to 64-bit: you
should *always* do a 'fresh install' if/when you do that.  Make a backup of
your /etc and /home and maybe things like /var/www and /var/ftp, dump
your MySQL/Progress/OpenLDAP databases, etc., unless that stuff is on a
separate file system.

> Thanks
> Johan
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>                                                                                   

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Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
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