25 Nov
2005
25 Nov
'05
2:52 p.m.
On 11/25/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht(a)gmail.com> wrote:
There aren't too many limitations on the use of
non-multimedia
application code in portage. The trick seems to be deciding when to
use ~x86 and ~amd64. That's a bit of a frustration but not a major
hinderance.
I can answer that. You never use ~x86 on an amd64 running in 64 bit
mode. It can cause serious issues if you do. You may not have run
into such issues but they are there and I have (first time I installed
I decided to take that shortcut as well). The correct way to install
code is to use ~amd64 if you need to. If it is not there then you add
it if you really want the program but keep in mind that it means that
the program very well might not work on amd64 or may be incredibly
unstable.
Why not use ~x86? Think of the following scenario:
* app-theoretical has ~x86 but not ~amd64 in the latest release
because it has been reported as unstable by most people..
* app-theoretical depends on lib-theoretical.
* You have lib-theoretical installed but it is a version previous to
the reqs on this latest release of app-theoretical - many of your
programs require this lib - you have a *stable* install of this
library.
* The new release of lib-theoretical does not work on amd64 and is
known to have many issues for many people. Therefore the keyword
~amd64 is not included.
You run emerge on app-theoretical with the ~x86 accept flags and it
replaces lib-theoretical with something that does not work. Not even
updating your programs will fix the issue.
It also causes problems when you mix flags like that because of the
way emerge chooses to install requirements. You just don't do it or
eventually your system will start to act shitty. Gentoo has a good
article on this in one of their FAQ or something for the amd64.