Hi all,
I have installed an amd64 debian and my old 32bit apps now cannot be started. Probably I have forgotten to install something (related to multiarch, i386 mode). Currently I have no 32bit libs too, ldd doesn't work with 32bit apps. And I have no idea how to fix it.

Hi,

you probably need to
and then
See https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/HOWTO for more information.

Evo2.

Are you thinking of multiarch support? Basically that involves installing the multiarch-support package and then reinstalling your 32 bit apps with packages ending in ":i386"
jdk

dpkg --add-architecture i386 itself did not solve the issue. The question more or less is: what libfoo should I install, how will I know that?
I know that wiki page too, but could not find relevant info....

Pick an example 32bit app that you want and run That will show you want dependencies (including libfoos) are needed for that app. Alternatively you can look up the dependencies on the Debian packages site.
jdk

Oh yes, that would be the easy case. I have an app with its own install engine (X-Plane is a 64bit app, but the installer/updater of it is a 32bit app ...).

Hi,
Does ldd not show the missing libraries? If not, what does it report?

Evo2.

ldd simply dies: it is not an executable.... file recognizes file type, but ldd cannot handle. Probably this should have been fixed first.

Hi,
then what is it?

Care to share that information?

What does it report?

Evo2.

file told: it is an ELF 32 bit stripped ...
ldd told: not an executable ...

for me it looks like file based on its magic can recognize file type correctly, but if I tried to execute any 32bit app the only respond I got is: not an executable. So my debian is unable to handle that 32bit code (cannot execute, cannot ldd....) at all.

Hi,

as a sanity check could you try installing some 32 executable from the repositories?
Evo2.

1 members found this post helpful.

yes, thanks, that was a good tip, but actually I cannot install libc6-i386 because there are dependency conflicts again.

Hi,
Ouch, then I think you are in trouble. Pretty much everything needs libc6 at some level. If you are going to pursue this further I think you should start by posting the output when you try to install libc6-i386 and perhaps explaining if there is anything special about this machine.

Evo2.

root@suni:/# apt-get install less:i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
less:i386 : Depends: libc6:i386 (>= 2.11) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libtinfo5:i386 but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
root@suni:/# apt-get install libtinfo5:i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libtinfo5:i386 : Depends: libc6:i386 (>= 2.4) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
root@suni:/# apt-get install libc6:i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
discover-data gcj-4.7-base geany-common git-man gnome-commander-data klibc-utils libklibc libpthread-stubs0 libpthread-stubs0-dev libwireshark-data libx11-doc
linux-headers-3.2.0-4-common linux-headers-3.2.0-4-common-rt mc-data mysql-workbench-data qemu-keymaps qt4-doc squid-common squid-langpack squid3-common
vim-gui-common vim-runtime x11proto-core-dev x11proto-input-dev x11proto-kb-dev x11proto-xext-dev xen-hypervisor-4.1-amd64 xorg-sgml-doctools xtrans-dev
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
gcc-4.7-base:i386 libc6-i686:i386 libgcc1:i386 multiarch-support:i386
Suggested packages:
glibc-doc:i386 locales:i386
The following packages will be REMOVED:
(... 1603 packages ...)
The following NEW packages will be installed:
gcc-4.7-base:i386 libc6:i386 libc6-i686:i386 libgcc1:i386 multiarch-support:i386
WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed.
This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
apt libapt-pkg4.12 (due to apt) libc6 (due to apt) libgcc1 (due to apt) libstdc++6 (due to apt) debian-archive-keyring (due to apt) gnupg (due to apt) base-files
base-passwd bash debianutils (due to bash) dash (due to bash) libtinfo5 (due to bash) bsdutils coreutils dpkg (due to coreutils) install-info (due to coreutils)
libacl1 (due to coreutils) libattr1 (due to coreutils) libselinux1 (due to coreutils) diffutils libbz2-1.0 (due to dpkg) liblzma5 (due to dpkg) zlib1g (due to dpkg)
tar (due to dpkg) e2fsprogs e2fslibs (due to e2fsprogs) libblkid1 (due to e2fsprogs) libcomerr2 (due to e2fsprogs) libss2 (due to e2fsprogs) libuuid1 (due to
e2fsprogs) util-linux (due to e2fsprogs) findutils grep gzip hostname login libpam0g (due to login) libpam-runtime (due to login) libpam-modules (due to login)
mount libmount1 (due to mount) libsepol1 (due to mount) ncurses-bin perl-base sed sysvinit initscripts (due to sysvinit) sysv-rc (due to sysvinit) sysvinit-utils
(due to sysvinit) tzdata (due to util-linux) debconf (due to util-linux) libncurses5 (due to util-linux) libslang2 (due to util-linux)
0 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 1603 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 5,554 kB of archives.
After this operation, 4,645 MB disk space will be freed.
You are about to do something potentially harmful.
To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!'
?] no
Abort.



root@suni:/# apt-get install libc6-i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libc6-i386 : Depends: libc6 (= 2.13-38+deb7u1) but 2.18-4 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Hi,

I think perhaps this is happening because you have some packages on hold. Can you confirm? Eg
If there is something on hold, does it really need to be?

Also can you say what version of Debian you are running and confirm that the packages are kept current (apart from any specific held packages)?

Evo2.