LFS 64bit - thoughts

[Nathan Coulson]

I noticed one person mentioning 64bit LFS on a previous post.  It made
me wonder how LFS may address this in the future.

On my own,  I took the multilib plunge about 6 months ago.  (sortof a
hodgepodge of LFS's buildsystem, and a few occassional CLFS patch's).
I had the following ideals in mind in the construction of my own
system.  (I dont know how close these are to LFS values)

-I wanted a pure 64bit os, or at least a system where 32bit could be
added on later.  (To this end, I built a multilib gcc/glibc/binutils,
but no other 32bit libraries unless I specifically had a program link
against them)
-I dont like the idea that if I was to install a 32bit version of a
package, that it would overwrite the 64bit binaries.  (goes against my
first idea, where I wanted 32bit as a addon).  [although this one has
caused a few headaches].  I know one can install the 64bit version
after, but it just feels wrong.
-I like the concept of building the simplest system first, and giving
options later in BLFS.  (such as the 32bit environment).
-I prefer to use standards (if appliable) to find the location of
32/64bit libraries.  CC=gcc -m32 is smart enough to find /usr/lib,
while gcc can see /usr/lib64.  I also found that overriding
PKG_CONFIG_PATH to /usr/lib/pkgconfig or /usr/lib64/pkgconfig is a
great way of helping a config script find it's dependencies.
-CLFS/BCLFS has done alot of work to make 32/64bit buildsystems work
relatively seemless, but I do not like the concept of the
multiarch_wrapper they made.  (Saying that, I dont know of a better
solution).  Most packages seem to use pkg-config either in conjuction,
or instead of programs in /usr/bin that tell you where to link
against.  That is not the case for all programs though.

note: more details on the multiarch wrapper can be found at
http://cross-lfs.org/view/svn/x86_64/final-system/multiarch_wrapper.html.




-- 
Nathan Coulson (conathan)
------
Location: Alberta, Canada
Timezone: MST (-7)
Webpage: http://www.nathancoulson.com