32-bit Firefox (Re: How long will 64bit Ubuntu users have towait?)

[Matthias Klose]

Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 11, 2006 at 10:10:27AM +0200, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
>> * Matt Zimmerman 
>>
>> | The latter would be preferable, as it avoids duplicating the source and
>> | automatically stays up to date as the package changes.  The bi-arch support
>> | in our compiler should make it possible to build both 64-bit and 32-bit
>> | binaries during the same build, if the necessary development packages are
>> | arranged.
>>
>> This is the big problem -- firefox build-depends on a bunch of
>> libraries like libxt-dev and libx11-dev which would require those to
>> exist in a 32-bit build for amd64.  Similarly, we would need a build
>> of gtk, orbit, freetype, cairo.  At some point, you're really running
>> half your desktop in 32 bit mode.  To be honest -- I don't see the
>> point, it's not worth the maintenance for the distro team and I would
>> rather see the effort being used for proper multiarch.
> 
> Aren't most of those libraries available as 32-bit for openoffice?

they could be made available as ia32-* packages, but need major editing 
in adjusting path names from /usr/lib to /usr/lib32.