Slashdot Mirror
Debian Wheezy To Have Multi-Architecture Support
dkd903 writes "Debian has announced they are introducing support for multiarch in Debian Wheezy. Multiarch support means a Debian system will be able to install and run applications built for a different target system."
I tried to tag it as "badlink" and by accident ended up with multiple incorrect tags that I can't delete. What a winning interface.
RudeDude
Perl/Linux/PHP hacker
Read about it here: http://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch
I guess the best way to prevent people from reading TFA is to not post a proper link...
Anyway, here is the Debian announcement.
When the href is finally added, can we please make sure it's to the debian release rather than the link provided in the submission? Slashvertisements are depressing.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
Is it powered by drugs and cough syrup?
This is in Natty. See Here
Not sure about what they mean with multi arch. Should it be like Mac OS X and its use of fat Mach-o binaries? I think something alike can be implemented on Linux through the use of FatELF. That is, the same binary can run on every supported arch.
No, they are explicitly *not* doing that. /lib64 is a narrow solution to the more general problem of multi-architecture support.
The new approach here is to put e.g. Linux/amd64 libraries in /usr/lib/lx86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/. The hope is that a future revision of the FHS will incorporate this.
Original submission had the link correctly. Timothy replaced it with a bad one.
Looks like Wheezy will finally get a piece of the pie.
I bet it took a whole lot of trying just to get up that hill.
Now that they are up in the big leagues, they will get their turn to bat.
And I don't think there is anything wrong with that.
Now I can play those Mac games! Debian so rocks! Or is that not what they meant?
I actually really like this idea. I do a lot of embedded development and it would be AMAZING to be able to compile ARM or run an ARM directly, or not just ARM but even x86.
Better late than never I suppose. This is good news nonetheless, makes it easier for us Debian/Ubuntu fans to use a 64bit OS. Score one more point for the Linux world!
...*Ahem*, I mean GNU/Linux world, there, happy RMS? :)
.......that we're not going to get another Debian release for another fifty years?
at the risk of feeding trolls, when will they update Wine?
So you can run STABLE on both a TOPS-20 *AND* an 80286!!! :D
32 vs 64 bit isn't the only reason to want something like this. What about systems that happen to provide support for another binary format with hardware translation?
did you accidentally the whole thing?
Don't you mean GNU/RMS?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
They do, but their are not happy with the way it is handled now in Linux distributions. They want to improve it.
New things are always on the horizon
although the feature is still vaporware, chinese Loongson 3 CPU stand to benefit from this as they feature hardware-assisted x86 emulation (using QEMU on the process). it's broken on the loongson 3A, but hopefully will work on 3B and up.
comments about /lib32, /lib64 miss some of the point, here we would want to run most things on MIPS 64, and some stuff, maybe windows games through wine, on i386 arch. that's potentially two arch with both 32bit and 64bit variants. another case would be running on a 32bit ARM CPU and run 32bit x86 software through emulation.
in general terms, debian run on a lot of architectures anyway, so supporting only two sub-archs as on other distros doesn't cut it :)
Uhm no, this is not bi-arch crap that keeps dragging us down -- as in, 32 bit libs on a 64 bit system. This is about having any library and any header co-installable with its versions from other architectures. Just think how much easier this makes cross-building things...
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Does this come bundled with his latest single?
You cannot warp because you are warp scrambled.
is that it allows the package manager to co-install packages of two different architectures in certain cases. This means that you can install a 32-bit Firefox (if you have some proprietary plugin) and have the rest of the system be 64-bit. Or you can install most of the packages from the armel port (ARM EABI soft-float) and install floating-point intensive ones from the armhf port (ARM EABI hard-float).
Previously, in order to install any meaningful amount of i386 software on an amd64 system, you had to install a package called ia32-libs, and if it didn't have the library you needed, you were SOL. Now you can install i386 libraries in parallel.
This is how it works in theory. Not all packages will be updated to be multiarch aware immediately, so YMMV.
Unfortunately, this is deceptively bad.
The point isnt to support lots of platforms, it's to allow x86 run on x86_64 platforms. In theory it's fantastic but the reality is that this will enable people to be lazy in that they will only release a build for x86 and just ignore all about 64-bit platforms because they can. While it would be great, not every Linux application or game is open source. Why make a 64-bit build when it can cause incompatibility because of bad coding practices? Even with open source, developers on a 32-bit systems will feel no need for 64-bit binary packages if their 32-bit stuff works on everything.
This is enabling people to release for ONLY the x86 platform. Will companies release for x86_64 if you demand it? YES! It happened with Flash and companies are realizing that a ton of people use 64-bit.
Look at Windows, there are a TON of new applications that are released only as a 32-bit build.
x86 is obsolete, we are in a 64-bit world now. Stop letting people hold us back!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The summary is terrible. And not just the invalid link.
Here's a more informative link than the one posted by lnunes.
Multiarch is not gonna let you run ARM binaries on an Intel chip or anything like that - nor will it let you run Windows code on Debian. What it will do, however, is let you run x86 compiled binaries on an x64 system. It will also allow for things like mixing armhf and armel code on modern ARM, but for the most part, running 32-bit x86 code on 64-bit x64 (amd64) systems will be the benefit most of us will get.
How will we benefit? You'll be able to run binary-only x86 code on your x64 system. This means Adobe Flash and Skype. Any open source code is fine, because it can be compiled for your own architecture - but for binary-only proprietary software, it may not be available for your architecture.
"But this is already possible" you may be thinking. It is, but it's a nasty kludge at the moment. These packages, when installed on 64-bit systems, depend on 32-bit versions of several system libraries, which are separate packages. There's a series of kludges to make them work, and it's not very flexible.
The heart of multiarch support is a re-designed file system layout which accounts for the architecture of any binaries. So instead of putting some binary libraries in /lib/, it puts it in /lib/amd64/ or /lib/i386/. This is the first step for allowing the same package to be installed for different architectures. Then, dpkg will have to be modified to track packages from more than one architecture on the one system.
Faulty premise. You're assuming there's more than one monkey working on slashcode, when in fact it's just soulskill working on his lunchbreaks.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
so that takes away about 90% of the coolness factor
This multiarch support is no hot innovation. For years, NetBSD has been able to cross-build the entire system and offer 32 bit binary compatibility on 64 bit architectures.
After all Disney has done for cultural freedom, it's nice to see Debian is still honoring their properties with its OS names.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It's difficult for an asthmatic to even hear the word "wheezy" and not reach for an inhaler.
Is the Slashdot interface open-source, then?
I am not devoid of humor.
Which distribution is currently shipping cross-compile environments? Which distribution has a solution that extends beyond Intel's architecture?
SUSE. It's called Open Build Service and exists since 5 or so years.