Upgrading i686 vs. x86_64. Just checking !

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Saturday 27 February 2010 09:21:35 pm Suvayu Ali wrote:
> On 27/02/10 07:05 PM, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
> > ...
> > version of it (yet). Later on I tainted it again when installing
> > dependencies for Wolfram Mathematica package I use.
> > 
> > If there weren't for closed source software which depends on 32bit
> > libraries, I'd be having a clean 64bit-only system.
> 
> I run F11 x86_64 and there are *zero* 32 bit libraries on my machine. I
> recently installed Mathematica from the Wolfram supplied binary for a
> friend. I however did not need to install any 32 bit dependencies. Are
> you sure about their dependence on 32 bit libraries?

Umm, well, yes, I needed this specifically:

   compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-68.i686

This package provides libstdc++.so.5 which is needed by Mma 6.0.3. Maybe in 
F11 this library is elsewhere, or you have a different version of Mma which 
doesn't depend on it. I remember that Mma installation script refused to 
complete until I installed both 64bit and 32bit versions of compat-libstdc++. 
First it complained about the missing library, and after I installed the 64bit 
version it complained again about the same library still missing. After I 
installed 32bit version, the script completed with no problems.

Maybe this can be avoided somehow, but it wasn't obvious to me. Or maybe Mma 
was just looking for the library in /usr/lib instead of /usr/lib64, which 
would account as a bug, possibly resolved in version 7? I didn't have enough 
time to look into all that seriously, I just kept installing things until it 
was happy.

And given that I already had cca 80 or so 32bit packages as dependencies for 
skype, one more for Mma doesn't make much difference anyway. ;-)

Best, :-)
Marko