Python i686 vs x86_64 -- for testing a python library

[Adam Jackson]

On 3/27/12 10:39 AM, Martin Langhoff wrote:
> I am diagnosing a bug/odditywith a python library that uses Pyrex and
> other oddities. In the course of that, I have installed python.i686 on
> my F16 x86_64 system, and I'm trying to run it and... no dice!
>
> According to rpm, python.x86_64 and python.i686 both own
> /usr/bin/python and /usr/bin/python2.7 . Those binaries are 64 bits.
> Googling around, I cannot find any clue on how to run the 32 bit
> binary.
>
> Had optimistically assumed that I'd find python.i686 stashed somewhere
> when I looked at rpm -ql python.686 ...

Welcome to rpm.  ELF files have a wacky concept called "color", which 
means you can have both .i686 and .x86_64 versions of the same package 
installed with no conflict and the x86_64 version wins on disk.

Use a chroot or an i686 vm.  Or possibly just do rpmdev-extract on the 
i686 version and run it directly.

- ajax