[ATrpms-users] Re: mplayer win32codecs or firefox flash plugin on x86_64?

[Tako Schotanus]

Axel Thimm wrote:

>On Mon, Nov 14, 2005 at 04:00:45PM +0100, Tako Schotanus wrote:
>  
>
>>Ok, I back to testing the installation of a x86_64 system with bits of 
>>i386 mixed in (like firefox for example).
>>
>>So what I did was after having installed smart + the medley package and 
>>after having upgraded was to _add_ the i386 version of each repository 
>>to smart's list of channels.
>>    
>>
>
>That's a bit too much. I would only pull the ones I really need, as
>random co-installs of applications like mplayer for 64 and 32 bits
>will not work as you would wish.
>  
>
I understand, but I want this to be as stupid as possible, I don't want 
to know, nor do I think should most users, which channels to add and 
which not. If in the end we could always just add all channels it might 
be something that could be installed as a special medley package maybe?

>  
>
>>I can now say "smart install firefox at i386" and it wil install it, nice, 
>>that works and it even takes care of a few missing i386 dependencies as 
>>well, even better. :-)
>>
>>I do have a couple of questions though before I continue:
>>
>>1. you can install both the 64 and 32 bit versions of firefox but 
>>normally only the 64 bit version will be started. Both versions will 
>>install the same startup scripts (one overwriting the other I assume) 
>>    
>>
>
>I think x86_64 wins.
>  
>
Which would be great for most cases! If the x86_64 version always wins 
we could safely leave the i386 repos in our channel list (that's what I 
hope anyway :-).

>  
>
>>and in case of firefox the script checks if a 64 bit version exists and 
>>will start that one over the 32 bits version. So to start the 32 bits 
>>version you either have to start the actual firefox-bin (losing some of 
>>the features handled by the script) or uninstall the 64 bit version. 
>>This is not such a big problem, I just wondered if there might be 
>>_other_ packages that don't handle being installed together that well? 
>>    
>>
>
>I would assume the opposite. If the package isn't offered in 32 and 64
>bits in the 64 bits repo, chances are that it will break if installed
>in both archs. Unless it is a lib, in which case it is handled sanely.
>
>  
>
Ok, but doesn't that mean that the repo managers should provide 32 bit 
version for "problematic" packages? That would be fine with me... but 
more work for you because I'll start asking for 32 bit versions for 
several packages :-)

>>Should I report cases like that if I encounter them? Or is the general 
>>consensus that you shouldn't try to run 32 bit apps on a 64 bit system?
>>    
>>
>
>You should, but you should not install both 32 bits and 64 bits of the
>same package (unless it is a library package). The idea is to fall
>back to 32 bit apps when some don't exits for 64 bits, not have both
>apps. firefox is an exception due to the plugins.
>  
>
I understand and I don't actually want that but the 64 bit version was 
installed already and I wanted to see what would happen. I since then 
removed the 64 bit version.

>  
>
>>In the meantime I'll see if I can get the other 32 bit apps working 
>>(mplayer with win32codec, jpackage-java + ws/plugin, cedega).
>>    
>>
>
>mplayer for example is not modelled to have 64 bits and 32 bits
>coexist. If you install both, you will efectivley have only the 64 bit
>version.
>  
>
I understand, I only installed the 32 bit version for this one, no 
problems so far.

Cedega seems to work as well although I couldn't test completely yet 
because I still have to install the nvidia drivers.

I haven't been able to rebuild the Java packages yet though, using 
"rpmbuild -ba --target=i586 java-1.5.0-sun.spec" does not seem to help 
as the spec file insists that it needs the amd64 version. Putting 
"linux32" in front of the rpmbuild command doesn't fool it either. And 
even commenting out all the "%if(n)arch x86_64" where they appear still 
doesn't help, because now they build ok but the result is still a bunch 
of x86_64 rpms!

Any ideas on how to fix that?

Cheers,
 -Tako