64bit or not ?

[Brent Bice]

Matthew Geier wrote:
>  Unfortunately, Linux 64 bit systems are split into two camps - the 
> Redhat way and the Debian way.
> 
>  On the Redhat and related systems /lib is 32bit. Old applications 
> compiled with bad assumptions as to were libraries are still work. The 
> 64bit arch is in /lib64 (and /usr/lib64)
> 
>  Debian and related (Ubuntu) put the 'native' arch in /lib (eg 64bit) 
> and the 32bit library's are in /lib32.
>  This breaks 32bit applications with bad assumptions that work on 
> Redhat/Fedora.
> 
>  I've had this happen first hand - on 64bit Fedora many of my old Loki 
> games (32bit) still work. On 64 bit Ubuntu, only Alpha Centuri works, 
> the others all fail with dynamic link errors when they try to directly 
> pull in library's out of /lib (wrong arch). Since Loki is no more, 
> patches are unlikely to appear.

    You might be able to make 'em go by setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH to 
/lib32:/usr/lib:/usr/local/lib  (or whatever other places it needs to 
find libraries) before running the binary.  Not a guarantee, especially 
if the app had hardwired paths and tried to do it's own dynamic loading 
of libs, but...

>  Less of a problem with 'compile from source' but there is still scope 
> for developers to make bad assumptions about what architecture is in /lib.

    True. These are usually pretty easy to fix though.  So easy that the 
last time I ran across something that didn't compile out of the box it 
was so easy to find the solution with a little googling that I don't 
even remember what the problem and fix was . :-)

Brent