Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Advice for 64-bit n00b?

[Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk>]

On 4 Mar 2010, at 07:19, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

> On 03/04/2010 08:44 AM, Graham Murray wrote:
>> Volker Armin Hemmann<volkerarmin@googlemail.com>  writes:
>>
>>> no, it is not safe to have a 64bit only system. Just choose the  
>>> multilib
>>> profile and start installing. If something needs the 32bit emul  
>>> libs, it will
>>> pull the stuff in. There is nothing you need to care about.
>>
>> What is unsafe about a 64bit only system? Surely if it were unsafe  
>> then
>> Gentoo would not offer no-multilib profiles? I have recently built 2
>> systems using a no-multilib profile and have not found any  
>> problems, and
>> expect to start building a third one today.
>
> You didn't understand the question Volker was replying to.  The  
> question was not about "safe" as in "security", but rather "safe" as  
> in "I can rest assured that a no-multilib system can run every  
> software I could install", which is clearly not the case since some  
> applications need 32-bit support.

I could imagine that web-browsers might need 32-bit support in order  
to play Flash, but can you suggest other applications which might?

This is a headless server, and I was kinda reassured by Alan's  
response (Wed, 3 Mar 2010 22:04:17 +0200) [1] that seemed to assure me  
that a statically linked 32-bit binary would work fine if I selected  
the "no-multilib" profile.

I'd be really quite happy if I knew that this decision was revocable -  
if I could choose "no-multilib" now and change my mind using eselect  
later. Presumably  I can choose to keep these 32-bit libs for the  
moment & blow them away if I find I don't need them - this lib32 is,  
after all, in the stage3-amd64-*tar.bz2, so what is the point in  
offering me "no-multilib" if I can't do that?

Stroller.



[1] http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user/msg_64a30b77742cf5846705952e6129367d.xml
http://tinyurl.com/ykvx5co