aptitude shows double every package

[karl]

Since oneiric aptitude shows packages double, one installed, one not. For instance cron:installed:german description and cron:notinstalled:title of english description but nothin in the box but the url of the Homepage.
When installing the uninstalled (via interactive ui) I get:
cron colliding with cron
propose 105 removals and 8 keeps

I tried to purge and reinstall aptitude but did not help.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: aptitude 0.6.4-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Oct 22 00:14:15 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: aptitude
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-01 (19 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Yann Pouillon (pouillon)]

What likely happens is that aptitude is listing both x86_64 and i386 packages. I can see the same in Synaptic, with the difference that synaptic shows the ":i386" suffix every second line.

[Robert Sander (gurubert)]

I also see 39626 "New Packages". After pressing "f" they disappear.

After restarting aptitude 19897 "New Packages" are shown.

Why are i386 packages shown on amd64?

[karl (karl-sebastian-liebich)]

it is good to show them because so you can install them if you need. some 32-bit applications need i386 librarys.

[Torsten Bronger (bronger)]

I don't think that this is good. It is very confusing because aptitude cannot handle this duplication properly. I can't even see the architecture.

[Xoby (xoby)]

The problem is that Ubuntu 11.10 supports multiarch (32 bit packages on a 64 bit architecture) but aptitude does not.

As a temporary solution you can comment "foreign-architecture i386" in "/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/multiarch" to be able to use aptitude (and uncomment if you need to install 32 bits packages)

[Sean Shepherd (phrostbhyte)]

Thanks Xoby commenting out the foreign-arch . . . fixed it. I appreciate it :)