A workaround for multilib archs ? [Re: Re: state of apt-rpm development?]

> > Is there support for multilib in svn? It's sad to see FC/RHEL x86_64
> > (and the miriads of clones) w/o apt ... :(
> 
> Nope. And yes it's unfortunate...
> 

Yes it is ... 

And as it looks that this will not change soon, what about 
at least making apt usable on multilib archs ? (for 
native arch only ...).

with current apt version if you happen to have (x86_64)
system with installed (identically named) 
x86_64.rpm and i686.rpm what happens is the later one 
completely 'masks' the former:

as result apt depsolver believes that the system 
is missing the x86_64.rpm provides... which is quite
disastrous if the package in question is glibc ...

I understand that making apt multiarch capable is an huge
task: but what about (for time being/via an option) make it 
ignore compatible archs on x86_64/ia64 systems ?

What I use currently on x86_64/ia64 is a patched 
apt-0.5.15cnc6 which ignores athlon/i?86 packages 
completely.

The patch consist in making apt reject packages for 
architectures with score > 2 
(athlon/i?86 in case of x86_64/ia64)

in apt-pkg/rpm/rpmlistparser.cc, rpmListParser::Step()

-if (Handler->IsDatabase() == true ||
-        RpmData->ArchScore(Architecture().c_str()) > 0)
-        return true;

+// ONLY compatible AND native/noarch accepted
+if (RpmData->ArchScore(Architecture().c_str()) > 0 
+    && RpmData->ArchScore(Architecture().c_str()) < 3)  
+        return true;

As far as I can tell this works for me: I can now use apt
on 64bit archs to manage 64bit packages (and ONLY these)
, 32bit ones are completely ignored...

Of course this is a workaround (and ugly ..) with some 
drawbacks ... but I believe that something is better than
nothing ....  

Could such workaround (well ... improved, no hardcoding ...) 
be considered for inclusion in apt for now ? 
(with an option like APT::NativeArchOnly set to "false"
by default ... for std behaviour ..)

Jarek (maintaining one of 'miriads of clones' of RHEL ;-))

PS: For the people who would like to try above on their own:
    one needs to rm -f /var/cache/apt/*bin before running
    such patched version.
 
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