firefox.i386 in x86_64 repo

[Matt Domsch]

On Mon, Jul 31, 2006 at 09:48:38PM -0500, Jay Cliburn wrote:
> I'm indifferent to browser make and model, myself; Firefox just seems to 
> be in vogue and I'm accustomed to it now.  But the enduring headache for 
> a number of FC x86_64 users is the absence of 64-bit Macromedia Flash 
> and Sun Java plugins -- despite the availability gnash and blackdown and 
> nspluginwrapper -- and fedoraforum is chock full of people trying to 
> figure out how to add i386 repos and install and keep up to date a 
> "foreign" arch package in x86_64.  For some AMD64 owners, the decision 
> whether to use FCx.i386 or FCx.x86_64 is swayed to i386 by the simple 
> desire to avoid the wrestling match with 32-bit Firefox and its plugins 
> in a 64-bit Fedora.  (A cursory search of the AMD64 forum at fedoraforum 
> will bear out this assertion.)
> 
> I wrote a howto at fedoraforum that lays out the steps to get 32-bit 
> Firefox installed with Flash and Sun Java in x86_64, but I'm 
> occasionally astonished at just how badly people can muck it up by not 
> following the instructions to the letter, and sometimes they run into 
> gnarly dependency problems that may or may not be of their own making. 
> Having 32-bit Firefox in the x86_64 repo significantly simplifies the 
> whole process, and would be cheered by many a new Fedora/AMD64 user.

Much as it is highly annoying, other distributions such as OpenSuSE
have started shipping only the 32-bit Firefox or equivalent on AMD64,
and not shipping a 64-bit Firefox at all, for exactly this reason.
Idea being work must happen in the background to get 64-bit Java and
other plugins to work, but until then, don't dork over your end
users.  You loose a lot of bully pulpit, but you make for happier users.

-- 
Matt Domsch
Software Architect
Dell Linux Solutions linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux
Linux on Dell mailing lists @ http://lists.us.dell.com