what is with all the i386 packages on x86_64 install?

[Tom Horsley]

I was finally, after a couple of days of trying
able to update my x86_64 FC6t2 installation, but
only after doing:

rpm -e nautilus-2.15.4-3.i386 nautilus-cd-burner-2.15.4-3.i386
control-center-2.15.4-6.i386 totem-1.5.91-2.fc6.i386
gnome-media-2.14.2-6.i386

I kept getting messages about nautilus-2.15.4-3 depending on
files that would be updated by the new x86_64 nautilus
the update was trying to install (but there was no new
i386 nautilus to go along with it).

Why on earth would things like nautilus and totem and
control center need or want i386 versions on an x86_64
system? I can see needing i386 libraries, but these
things aren't libraries, they are utility programs.

I didn't do anything special to ask for all this i386 stuff.
I just installed from the DVD and selected everything
except all the extra language packages, then tried to
update the system, and got errors with all these conflicting
i386 packages (and there are a lot more where the ones above
came from, those are just the one I had to remove to get
through the update).

I know there is some undocumented mystic secret handshake
that goes on underneath the covers in the rpm stuff somewhere
that is supposed to make i386 and x86_64 conflicts "just
work", but clearly, for updates, it doesn't "just work" if
the repos aren't consistent, and the more i386 stuff there
is, the bigger chance the repos won't be consistent. In fact,
the odds of doing an update at a moment in time when the
repos are consistent approach zero :-(.