Sunday, January 6, 2013

Switch to multilib with 32-bit compatibility on Slackware64










Slackware64 is pure 64-bit system and does not contain multilib and 32-bit compatibility packages officially. This does not mean that Slackware64 is not multilib-ready. It is possible to add layer of multilib and 32-bit compatibility software to Slackware64. 

You need multilib support because some closed source programs, such as Google Earth, Adobe Reader and Team Viewer, require multilib and 32-bit compatibility layer in order to be run on Slackware64. 

To switch multilib with 32-bit compatibility on Slackware64 14.0 using Eric Hameleers' packages and guide;

1. open a terminal emulator,

2. download the complete Slackware 14.0 multilib folder.

lftp -c 'open http://slackware.com/~alien/multilib/ ; mirror 14.0'

3. become root,

su

4. change directory to the downloaded multilib packages' folder.

cd 14.0

5. upgrade your 64bit Slackware gcc and glibc packages to their multilib versions,

upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new *.t?z

6. install 32-bit compatibility packages to support all the 32-bit programs,

cd *-compat32

upgradepkg --install-new *-compat32/*.t?z

7. add below lines to /etc/slackpkg/blacklist file for blacklisting all off multilib and 32-bit compatibility packages against updated by slackpkg tool,

#
# This one will blacklist all alien packages: 
[0-9]+alien
#

For further information about multilib, look at here!

2 comments:

  1. Bravo! Good to see men who know what a REAL UNIX compliant GNU/Linux is supposed to be!

    ReplyDelete
  2. So far, your tutorial for installing multilib for Slackware, a simple straight forward step by step explanation, is the best!

    ReplyDelete