generating 32-bit RPM's

[John Haxby]

Joshua Jensen wrote:

>>But, 32-bit and 64-bit are both x86.  It's not like he's trying to
>>compile for SPARC or PowerPC here, which *would* need a
>>cross-compiler.  See below.
>>    
>>
>
>No they aren't.  A 32 bit binary is very very different than a 64bit 
>one.  Sure, the machine code from IA32 looks more similar to x86-64 code 
>than say 64bit PPC, but it isn't the same and they should be considered 
>completely seperate archs.
>
>  
>
Well, that's a bit strong.   I can compile and run programs on an i386 
machine and copy those same compiled programs to an x86_64 machine and 
they run just fine.   Similarly, If I "gcc -m32" something on the x86_64 
machine it runs on the i386 machine.   The only thing that won't work is 
a "gcc -m64" program running on an i386.    They may be different 
architectures, but, really and truly you can regard the x86_64 as a 
strict superset of i386 from an application programming point of view.

Compare that with, say, SPARC64 vs i386.   There's nothing I can compile 
on either platform that will run on both.   Apart from python and java 
maybe :-)

jch