RFC: x86-runtime packages (was: Re: libexec and multi-arch)

[Jacek Konieczny]

On 2018-02-12 07:42, Tomasz Pala wrote:
>> Truly the best way out of all these discussions is to complete the 10+ year transition from 32bit to 64bit and stop the endless discussions and fiddle up retrofits.
> 
> Be my guest and just convert all the binary-only programs to 64 bit.
> Including the commercial ones.

I was thinking about some other solution: Make some '32bit runtime'
packages which would be built from our i686 packages and contain only
the libraries and other necessary files needed to run x86 apps on x86_64
system.

This packages would be explicitly made not to conflict with anything
from x86_64 packages and installing .i686 packages in x86_64 system
would not be needed any more.

The packages could be:

x86-runtime-basesystem (glibc, libstdc++ with dependencies)
x86-runtime-X11 (X11 libraries, maybe with the popular toolkits)
x86-runtime-SDL (SDL_* – mostly for games)
etc.

'Source*' in those specs would point to .i686.rpm files built by our
i686 builders.

Updating of the spec files could be partially automated.


Jacek