remove i386 from foreign arch on server install?

[Colin Watson]

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 02:26:27PM -0700, Adam Conrad wrote:
> So, if there's concensus that "server" installations shouldn't have a
> foreign arch enabled by default, we'd need to sort out how to fix this.
> 
> Right now, it's done in the dpkg postinst, which has no clue whatsoever
> what's a server or a desktop.  One could say "well, just enable it in
> ubiquity", but that cuts out all the desktop installations that are done
> via netboot/d-i methods.
> 
> So, perhaps one could tear out the dpkg postinst snippet and put it in
> the postinst of an empty package called "i386-multiarch" and add that
> to the desktop-common seed, but the idea of having a package installed
> whose sole purpose is to execute a postinst on first install, and then
> lie inert for the rest of the life of your system also rubs me slightly
> the wrong way.

A much better option would be to tweak the existing apt-setup/multiarch
preseed for server vs. desktop installs.  (I don't remember whether this
would remove an architecture that dpkg.postinst has already added, but
it could; alternatively, we could reasonably make dpkg.postinst only do
its thing for upgrades rather than new installs, with s/lt/lt-nl/ or
similar.)

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]