Ioannis Vranos wrote:
> Does SL 4.4 x86_64 run 32-bit apps or not, without recompilation?

It depends on the application.
There are alot of 32 bit libraries in the x86_64 distro.  So alot of 32 
bit applications work just fine.
Probrubly the most used example is the flash plugin for your browser. 
If you install the 32 bit firefox, the 32 bit flash plugin works just fine.

But I'm sure there are some 32 bit programs that are going to have problems.

*Troy puts on his mind reading hat*
How do I install 32 bit libraries and applications?

You put .i386 at the end.

An example is installing the 32 bit version of firefox.

   yum install firefox.i386

Since I still have my mind reading hat on, I see that you are 
complaining that the firefox.i386 isn't installing because it conflicts 
with firefox.x86_64.

That is usually the difference between applications and libraries.
The 64 bit libraries usually reside in some directory called /lib64/, 
like /usr/lib64/.  Because of this, you can have both the 32 bit 
libraries (that reside in a /lib/ directory such as /usr/lib/)  and the 
64 bit libraries on your machine at the same time
But applications are different.  When you start firefox, what do you 
type?  You type "firefox".  You don't type firefox.i386 or 
firefox.x86_64.  So, there is a conflict with most application, you can 
only have 32 bit or 64 bit installed, but not both.  If you install both 
of them, then it usually is the last one win's, so there isn't really a 
point in having them both installed.

So, my example above really should have been
   rpm -e firefox
   yum install firefox.i386
   yum --enablerepo=macromedia install flash-plugin

But I figured I'd actually answer that third question before it was asked.

Troy
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Troy Dawson  [log in to unmask]  (630)840-6468
Fermilab  ComputingDivision/LCSI/CSI DSS Group
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