On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 01:45:04PM -0400, Gene Heskett wrote: > Greetings all; > > One of the problems I have is architecture related, synaptic thinks for > some unfathomable to me reason, that this is an i386 machine. But its > not, currently running kernel 3.16.0-0.bpo.4-amd64, and no currently > installed 32 bit application has a problem.
That implies that you have a 64 bit capable machine, running a hand-selected 64 bit kernel, with a 32 bit userland. This is a generally usable configuration, but ends up with problems like what you are facing now. > But now all the browser coders have thrown i386 machines under the bus, > and I'm apparently stuck with the broken i386 stuff left behind. > > How can I convince the package managers to search for x86_64 stuff in the > repos and install it. You need to convert your machine from i386 to x86_64. There's an entry in the wiki: https://wiki.debian.org/Migrate32To64Bit but it doesn't look very trustworthy/up to date. > All my reload the repo databse errors point to it looking for > non-existant i386 version of this or that, when obviously (to me at > least) I see no valid reason for refusing to install x86_64 stuff. > > Or should I bite the bullet, go buy 2 new drives and do a fresh x86_64 > install? I would do that. If you have good backups and are willing to spend a weekend or so in an indeterminate state, you could go for the in-place conversion. -dsr-
