...making Linux just a little more fun!
Neil Youngman [ny at youngman.org.uk]
I've had a badly configured Debian on a Core2 Duo system for a while and I am starting again from scratch. The area where I am having trouble finding guidance is support for 32 bit programs and plugins on the AMD64 architecture.
I have found various recipes for getting specific programs working. Many of them appear to involve maintaining a separate i386 architecture installation in addition to the main AMD64 installation.
I am not keen on on maintaining 2 installations, nor am I keen on piecemeal solutions for each 32 bit program I may need to run. Can anybody point me to a good guide on the issues involved and/or a general solution to the problem of running 32 bit code on AMD64 debian?
Neil Youngman
René Pfeiffer [lynx at luchs.at]
On Dec 08, 2007 at 1429 +0000, Neil Youngman appeared and said:
> I've had a badly configured Debian on a Core2 Duo system for a while and I am > starting again from scratch. The area where I am having trouble finding > guidance is support for 32 bit programs and plugins on the AMD64 > architecture.
I run Debian AMD64 on two workstations, and I know this problem.
> I have found various recipes for getting specific programs working. Many of > them appear to involve maintaining a separate i386 architecture installation > in addition to the main AMD64 installation.
Having another Debian IA32 installed via debootstrap and chroot is easier than maintaining additionally IA32 libraries on the system.
> I am not keen on on maintaining 2 installations, nor am I keen on piecemeal > solutions for each 32 bit program I may need to run. Can anybody point me to > a good guide on the issues involved and/or a general solution to the problem > of running 32 bit code on AMD64 debian?
I took some advice from Gentoo's AMD64 HOWTO (http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_AMD_64). Having some 32-bit libraries around helps, and I am able to run Opera, Doom 3, Neverwinter Nights, Enemy Territory, Adobe Acrobat Reader and some more applications on my AMD64 boxes. Not all of them are typical office programs though. ;)
Best, René.