Question on 64-bit vs 32-bit libraries

[bahadir]

Hi,

If I want to run a pre-compiled 32-bit x86 executable that I got off the web, and if it complains about not finding some 32-bit shared libraries that I have the 64-bit versions of, what should I do?

The two libraries I need are libncurses.so.5 and libX11.so.6. Now if I put the 32-bit versions into /lib32 and showed the executable those, would it be a problem, since I'm running 64-bit X11?

Also why are we able to readily run 64-bit and 32-bit executables at the same time? Don't you need a mode change in the processor to do that?

Thanks,
Bahadir

[GJtje]

It looks like they run at the same time, your processor can only do one thing at a time. There are many processes running and every now and then a thing called context switch takes place which means the current process is removed from the cpu and another one is moved on to the cpu and then the cpu runs that process. So, then the cpu can also switch from 32 bit to 64 bit mode.

Maybe you need to emerge some of the emulation packages, like emul-linux-x86-xlibs to run it. Also sometimes making a symlink to another version helps.

[Corona688]

If the 32-bit versions are available and in paths it looks in, it can use them. When netscape-flash wanted some bizzare glibc++ variant I didn't have, I just stole one from a redhat RPM.
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