Arch Linux

DonVla

Member

From: Bonn, Germany

Registered: 2007-06-07

Posts: 997

still confused about arch's (/usr)/lib64 policy

hello,

i ask myself why arch does not symlink (/usr)/lib64 to (/usr)/lib on 64bit machines.
on the other hand, there is a /lib64 directory set up by glibc which is in core.
from the glibc PKGBUILD:

if [ "${CARCH}" = "x86_64" ]; then
    # fix for the linker
    sed -i '/RTLDLIST/s%/ld-linux.so.2 /lib64%%' ${pkgdir}/usr/bin/ldd
    #Comply with multilib binaries, they look for the linker in /lib64
    mkdir ${pkgdir}/lib64
    cd ${pkgdir}/lib64
    ln -v -s ../lib/ld* .
  fi

wouldn't be much easier to make a symlink from /lib64 to /lib and from /usr/lib64 to /usr/lib?
this would also cease the catalyst problems for arch64. (that's how i stumbled upon this.)
btw, there are also some community packages which use /usr/lib64, eg lmms and gpac.
arch's policy here is, at least for me, not so clear.

vlad

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,577

Re: still confused about arch's (/usr)/lib64 policy

I'm pretty sure that goes against the FHS, which is why the current system. Some distros say screw it, but messing with standards is very bad, and the FHS is a biggie.

DonVla

Member

From: Bonn, Germany

Registered: 2007-06-07

Posts: 997

Re: still confused about arch's (/usr)/lib64 policy

I'm pretty sure that goes against the FHS, which is why the current system. Some distros say screw it, but messing with standards is very bad, and the FHS is a biggie.

actually it doesn't:
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#LIB64

The 64-bit architectures PPC64, s390x, sparc64 and AMD64 must place 64-bit libraries in /lib64, and 32-bit (or 31-bit on s390) libraries in /lib.

sure, arch isn't intended to be a multilib system, but there _are_ two directories lib and lib64, and both are created (and needed) by core (i don't know if extra too) and used by community packages.
so why not go the more transparent and simple way?

AndyRTR

Developer

From: Magdeburg/Germany

Registered: 2005-10-07

Posts: 1,642

Re: still confused about arch's (/usr)/lib64 policy

go and read the CLFS book!

DonVla

Member

From: Bonn, Germany

Registered: 2007-06-07

Posts: 997

Re: still confused about arch's (/usr)/lib64 policy

go and read the CLFS book!

and this is an answer to ... ?
ps: yeah done

Last edited by DonVla (2009-03-05 13:13:43)