Hi folks,


i would like to hear about other opinions about real multilib support within our tree and package
managers. From what i know, there are mainly 2 different ideas:

1. Do the main stuff in the package manager (e.g. if the ARCH is amd64 and the package has x86
keyword, the package manager adds a lib32 useflag, which would additionally install the 32bit
variant of that package together with the normal 64bit install).

pro: 	-much lesser work for package maintainers

contra:	-needs addition in PMS and support in the pms, which will need some work on their side

2. Do the main stuff in the ebuilds themselves (e.g. an additional eclass multilib-native.eclass,
any ebuild with 32bit support would then need adaption and of course inheriting that eclass)

For reference, there are some users in #gentoo-multilib-overlay, which try to implement this option
in an git based overlay.

the arguments are more or less the reverse of above:

pro: 	-no need for PMS/PM support
	-could be started and improved at any time

contra: -needs much additional work since many ebuilds need to be changed and adapted


Which option do you prefer? Or does anyone have another option? Which additional arguments are there
for those options?

-- 
Thomas Sachau

Gentoo Linux Developer