Andreas Schwab <sch...@linux-m68k.org> writes: > Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> writes:
>> For example, suppose I'm doing development on an amd64 box targeting >> armel and I want to use Kerberos libraries in my armel application. >> I'd like to be able to install the armel Kerberos libraries on my >> Debian system using regular package management commands, just like any >> other package. > Just add a --sysroot option to the packager (that also transparently > translates symlinks), case closed. While this addresses the cross development case, it doesn't address the multiple native ABI case. It's elegant to be able to use the same solution to address multiple problems, particularly since there are other limitations with --sysroot. For example, I'd like apt-get upgrade, my pinning, my repository preferences, and so forth to apply to *all* of my installed packages rather than having to duplicate that setup work inside various alternative package roots. Which you can do with --sysroot, of course, by adding more complexity to the packaging system and having it track all the --sysroots that you've used, but with multiarch you get those properties for free. Anyway, I'll stop discussing this here, as it's not really on topic. I just wanted to provide some background, since I realize on the surface it's a somewhat puzzling decision. -- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>