I just wanted to find out if 64-bit Scientific Linux 6.1 is multilib-enabled by default, and if not, if someone can point me to a guide to describe the process of making it so.

I googled around for a while but couldn't find anything on the subject other than a couple threads where people complain about their multilib being broken.

Why would you want all libraries as "i686" ?
Will make it difficult to compile some programs,
and may be impossible to build some rpm packages.
The command 'rpm -qa | grep i686' will show installed i686 packages.

1425 packages i686 are available in "6.1/x86_64/os/Packages/"
http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux...4/os/Packages/

A few in 'updates'
http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux...86_64/updates/

And 1000 packages i686 in the EPEL repo
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL

But there is no groupinstall for i686. ( # yum grouplist )
You can get kind of a list with # yum install *i686 > list_i686
And the list can be sorted / edited :
The package names can be used for an install command.
.

It's a common misconception that i686 is 'better' in general.

It means that it is compiled specifically for later architecture, but like knudfl said, it can make it difficult to compile and install everything you want, as some packages are not available in i686 and may not be compatible with i686 packages.

Nice laptop btw

To answer your question, yes SL6.1 x86_64 does come with multilib installed and enabled by default.

You can read more people complaining about multilib here: http://scientificlinuxforum.org/inde...showtopic=1046

1 members found this post helpful.

Its not about replacing the 64 bit libraries with 32 bit, but more that I use a few programs that are available only in 32-bit binaries, and so I need 32-bit compatibility libraries to run them. Good to know that it comes enabled by default though, thanks.