[CentOS] i386 or x86_64 installation

Mon Jan 22 22:13:58 UTC 2007
John Summerfield <debian at herakles.homelinux.org>

Johnny Hughes wrote:

> 
> It is a headache (IMHO) to have to maintain a bunch of multiple arch
> RPMS.  As I said before, IF you stay with only the 32bit items that are
> in the official x86_64 repository then you should be mostly fine.
> 
> I personally think that the way x86_64 is handled is a buggy kludge
> (yes, I know I am the maintainer of this $ARCH :P).  An example is that
> if you install an i386 and x86_64 package of the same name ... then
> remove the i386 package ... some of the shared files (that were
> identical on install and worked ok) that are in both might be removed.
> These should stay as the x86_64 package is still installed.
> 
> This happens often enough that I wrote a script that figures out what
> should be there on x86_64 packages and gives me a list of packages that
> I need to reinstall to get the shared files back if they are missing.
> 

It sounds to me that rpm has a bug. It might be a design flaw, but still 
a bug.

If it allows two packages to install the same file (it didn't used to), 
then it needs to maintain a use count. Like for modules.

Only when the use count reaches 0 can a file be removed.

Have you tried your fortunes with bugzilla at RH?


-- 

Cheers
John

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