Running 32bit app on a 64bit Redhat. x64
 

Hi,

I'm thinking of installing a Redhat Enterpriser Linux 5 x64 on a 64bit IBM server.

Will I still be able to run my "old" 32bit programs or do I have to port/recompile them for 64bit ?

I've read something about installing 32bit libraries should solve some or most problems...

Regards.

I run lots of 32 bit applications on 64 bit Centos 5 (which is virtually identical to 64 bit RHEL 5).

You generally need to install some 32bit library packages (as you already seem to know). But that is quite easy to do with Yum (in Centos).

If you have the 32 bit binary file that you want to run available to you on some Linux system now, you can use the ldd command to find out what .so files it needs and on your RHEL system you can use the yum provides command to find the name of the package that includes that .so, then you can install the i386 architecture build of that package.

Unlike Debian based distributions, Red Hat and distributions based on it organize lib directories in a way that lets you install a 32 bit package of .so files on an x86_64 system without any conflict with the 64 bit build of the same package, which may also be installed.

On Debian based systems, a few packages of 32 bit libraries are made in a special version for installation on 64 bit systems. Other packages of 32 bit libraries would require non standard installation method to let them coexist with the 64 bit versions of the same libraries.