<=== intro ===>
multiarch is not an option anymore, at the moment is fundamental and not accepting it (not converting the system to multiarch) will sooner or later break our installations.
<=== how it was before ===>
we always had app that truly weren't 64bit (wine, skype, google-earth to name the most popular); to run those apps in 64bit systems we were installing ia32-libs (as the name suggests was kind of a "bridge" to enable 32bit compatibility in 64bit)
but ia32-libs was a huge pkg (if memory serves me well around 100MB lately) and harder to maintain.
<=== how it is now ===>
ia32-libs is obsoleted by multiarch (can therefore be removed from the archive > it's at the moment only a transitional pkg anyway that won't serve any good purpose)
it's up to the true 32bit pkg that can run in 64bit systems to load at install time the required libs
<=== howto ===>
let's check if we are already multiarch or not
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dpkg --print-foreign-architectures
if it does output i386 we are already converted and there's no more action to take
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sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
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sudo sed -i 's/deb\ /deb\ [arch=amd64,i386]\ /g' /etc/apt/sources.list
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sudo apt-get update
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dpkg --print-foreign-architectures
<=== FAQ ===>
1- yes, there's no way around the conversion to multiarch; apart from the app already listed above, adobe reader is also 32bit only now as will be the next update of v4l-utils
(these are just some of the app/lib that i'm aware off, if you know others please share in the comments)
2- yes, it's perfectly normal to see all those i386 lib being pulled in as dep when trying to install any of the above pkgs (basically that is exactly what multiarch is: the integration of 32bit libraries into 64bit systems)
3- ia32-libs (and ia32-libs-gtk) are part of the old way of thinking they are not needed, they are deprecated now (actually they can do more harm than good >> in my system at least ia32-libs is broken and trying to fix it doesn't worth the trouble
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zerozero@deb-kde ~/Documents $ sudo apt-get -s install ia32-libs
[sudo] password for zerozero:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
ia32-libs : Depends: ia32-libs-i386
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
zerozero@deb-kde ~/Documents $ sudo apt-get -s install ia32-libs ia32-libs-i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
ia32-libs-i386:i386 : Depends: libnspr4-0d:i386 (>= 4.8.6-1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libnss3-1d:i386 (>= 3.12.8-1+squeeze4) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
zerozero@deb-kde ~/Documents $ sudo apt-get -s install libnss3-1d:i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libnss3-1d:i386 : Depends: libnss3:i386 (= 2:3.13.6-2) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
zerozero@deb-kde ~/Documents $
5- for eclipse and android sdk see samriggs post