On 2005-06-06, David R. Morrison wrote: > Here are some first thoughts about how to use "universal" (aka "fat") > binaries with fink.
I'm wondering what the advantage is for a project like fink to build fat binaries. For projects that distribute things via CD and want to do so with a minimum of user-fuss, fat binaries are quite nice. Particularly for the installer. But fink doesn't do that. Fink does internet distribution. In which case fat binaries seem like a loss. For binary files, it means that half of what you download is never used. Bandwidth isn't cheap. :-) Also, I'm assuming that compiling a fat binary will take 2x as long as compiling a single-arch binary. For users that track unstable, that could get pretty annoying. I'd think that it makes the most sense to distribute the installer as a fat binary, but everything else a single-arch binary. The fink binary installer will know enough to download the .debs for the appropriate arch, and 'fink' itself can continue to build single-arch .debs. I'm pretty sure that dpkg is even smart enough to add the correct $arch to the name of the .deb. But don't quote me on that. For packages that needs special tweaks for one arch or another, it might be simplest to extend the Variants system to provide a predefined 'arch' Type that is correct at build-time. I'd suggest an implicit Type: arch (-ppc -hell) but that's just me. :-) regards, crh
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