Linux Debian support - AMD64 architecture & wine, openoffice.org, etc.

Author

AMD64 architecture & wine, openoffice.org, etc.

Gary Dale

2006-07-06, 1:12 am

I'm considering upgrading my system, which has a socket 754 processor,
to actually use the 64 bits I paid for. I've been looking through the
package lists in Etch and notice that the ones that explicitly list
AMD64 are not pervasive.

OpenOffice.org and wine are two biggies I've noticed seem to be missing.
However, my understanding is that the AMD64 processors will execute i386
programs - the problem is the libraries that they link to have to be
i386 as well - which doesn't work if a library is the 64-bit version
being called from a 32-bit program (e.g. a killer for running
OpenOffice.org or wine is the need for a 32bit libc6).

I'm not using SATA drives or anything which didn't run under Sarge for
that matter, so I'm not expecting any great hardware issues. However, I
am concerned about not being able to run OpenOffice.org and to a lesser
extent wine.

Have I got this right? If I install the AMD64 Etch, do I lose
OpenOffice.org and wine?

Markus Schoder

2006-07-06, 1:12 am

Gary Dale wrote:
> I'm considering upgrading my system, which has a socket 754 processor,
> to actually use the 64 bits I paid for. I've been looking through the
> package lists in Etch and notice that the ones that explicitly list
> AMD64 are not pervasive.
>
> OpenOffice.org and wine are two biggies I've noticed seem to be missing.
> However, my understanding is that the AMD64 processors will execute i386
> programs - the problem is the libraries that they link to have to be
> i386 as well - which doesn't work if a library is the 64-bit version
> being called from a 32-bit program (e.g. a killer for running
> OpenOffice.org or wine is the need for a 32bit libc6).
>
> I'm not using SATA drives or anything which didn't run under Sarge for
> that matter, so I'm not expecting any great hardware issues. However, I
> am concerned about not being able to run OpenOffice.org and to a lesser
> extent wine.
>
> Have I got this right? If I install the AMD64 Etch, do I lose
> OpenOffice.org and wine?

Kind of. The problem is not the libraries though. It is possible to
install 32 bit libraries in a dedicated directory hierarchy
(under /emul/ia32-linux) and the linker will automatically look there for
32 bit applications. The amd64 port has a package that installs a number of
compatibility libraries there.

The real problem is package management however. You cannot install i386
packages and amd64 packages in one installation. The solution is to set up
a chroot environment for i386 which is basically a separate Debian
installation with some mount and symlink trickery to have shared access
to /dev, /home and /tmp.

Here is a link that explains it

https://alioth.debian.org/docman/vi...md64-howto.html

Gary Dale

2006-07-06, 7:12 pm

Markus Schoder wrote:
> Gary Dale wrote:
>
> Kind of. The problem is not the libraries though. It is possible to
> install 32 bit libraries in a dedicated directory hierarchy
> (under /emul/ia32-linux) and the linker will automatically look there for
> 32 bit applications. The amd64 port has a package that installs a number of
> compatibility libraries there.
>
> The real problem is package management however. You cannot install i386
> packages and amd64 packages in one installation. The solution is to set up
> a chroot environment for i386 which is basically a separate Debian
> installation with some mount and symlink trickery to have shared access
> to /dev, /home and /tmp.
>
> Here is a link that explains it
>
> https://alioth.debian.org/docman/vi...md64-howto.html
>

Not the easiest document to read! It talks about chrooting pure64 and
later chrooting i386 while never explaining why you would do one or the
other. And apparently you can run a 64bit kernel with 32bit software but
they don't recommend it (for reasons that seem to be limited to certain
systems only).

I gather you can install a 64bit environment then add a chrooted i386
environment for OpenOffice.org. Next you have to bind all your document
folders, etc., to the chroot location and mount them there.

The multiarch stuff looks interesting but I think it is essentially a
kludge that could be eliminated by simply having proper ports of all the
software to the various architectures. I gather the feeling is this is
much more work than creating multiarch support. However, it looks like
that won't be available anytime soon. Look forward to seeing a lot of
-common packages. Glad they never decided to support i286!

Gary Dale

2006-07-27, 7:13 pm