i386 packages can not be installed on UNR

[Kevin Huang]

scenario:

1. download skype deb package
2. install it with error: Wrong architecture 'i386'

[Torsten Spindler (tspindler)]

Install with $ dpkg --force-architecture -i

[Neil J. Patel (njpatel)]

It seems dpkg is unable to support multi-arch (where it allows installation of two archs without warnings), so we either modify gdebi-gtk to allow installation of i386 software (but I don't know how this effects other things), or we provide skype in our repos.

[Pete Goodall (pgoodall)]

This does not been to be done for ship, but should be done immediately after ship.

I think we should investigate the possibility of supporting multi-arch. This is going to be a problem going forward unless Intel convinces all ISVs to provide lpia binaries.

[Pete Goodall (pgoodall)]

Just commented here.

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdebi/+bug/141531

This issue has obviously come up before in the context of install 32-bit binaries on 64-bit systems. According to the commenter (Michael Vogt) this is not simple to solve. We should better define what "not simple" means in terms of time and development resources.

[Torsten Spindler (tspindler)]

We cannot provide skype in our repo as we do not have rights for
redistributing it to the best of my knowledge.

[Neil J. Patel (njpatel)]

I think by 'not simple' in that sense they mean mixing 32-bit and 64-bit libs, however in our case mixing i386 and lpia seems to work fine.

Speaking to the guys in #mobile, it seems that there is no 'easy fix' for this (like you can do in rpm), so we'd need to modify the tools directly to special case i386 on lpia systems (at least gdebi).

[Bill Filler (bfiller)]

lets take a look at patching gdebi to specifically allow installation of i386 packages on lpia, or generically using the --force-architecture switch if it uses dpkg under the covers. Or perhaps it can be hooked into smagouns re-arch script if it encounters a i386 package.

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

In gdebi 0.3.8netbook1, I patched it to allow i386 installations on lpia.