On Tuesday 07 August 2007, Mark Hull-Richter wrote: ...
Unless you are planning to run only stripped-down systems, that can cause trouble. A lot of packages do not have 64-bit versions
Quite a big leap from this (lots of packages, cause trouble, ..)
and need (lots of) 32-bit support packages and libraries to run. E.g., web browsers (whose 64-bit versions run just fine until you need a plug-in that's only available in 32-bit versions).
...to this (problem when you need a 3rd party browser plugin that's not available in 64-bit).
I run many machines just fine with very few ix86 packages (glibc as the op also mentioned can be nice to have around..). IMHO having lots of 32-bit packages causes more problems than it's worth (as a default).
/Peter
Just a comment - I don't have a specific solution (yet).
mhr