+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #154281 +++ We use an AMD64 machine running 64-bit Fedora 3 to build 32-bit-compatible executables and we are missing the 32-bit /usr/lib/libreadline.a and .so. That was the original bug. It is now obvious to us that the 32-bit development environment in 64-bit FC3 is very incomplete: many 32-bit .so and .a libraries are missing. This deficiency has to be addressed. In the old UNIX/RISC world, 64-bit OSes come with the full 32-bit compatible development environements (i.e. SGI/IRIX on MIPS CPUs, SUN Solaris on SPARCs). In the new Linux/PC world, all new CPUs are 64-bit (AMD Opterons, Intel EM64T). On this 64-bit hardware, developers of 32-bit compatible software run 64-bit Linux to break the 4 GByte memory barrier and they run 64-bit development tools (compilers, debuggers) for best performance. But to make it all possible, the 64-bit Linux has to provide the full 32-bit development environment. The existing workarounds are not good enough: "just install the i386 -devel rpms" does not always work (rpm conflicts); "just copy the 32-bit libraries from a 32-bit machine" works, but is labour consuming, error prone and defeats rpm. Suggestions to "run 32-bit Linux to develop 32-bit apps" are hard to take seriously. Please provide the full 32-bit development environment as an (optional) part of x86_64 Fedora Core *and* RH Enterprise Linux. It should be possible to develop 32-bit compatible application on either the 32-bit or 64-bit Linux. K.O.
Not going to happen for FC3, obviously. Because many development libraries and headers aren't wordsize clean, this is not a simple fix.
Fedora Core 3 is now maintained by the Fedora Legacy project for security updates only. If this problem is a security issue, please reopen and reassign to the Fedora Legacy product. If it is not a security issue and hasn't been resolved in the current FC5 updates or in the FC6 test release, reopen and change the version to match. Thank you!
This will be fixed for FC6.