Multiarch: How To Use 32bit Packages On A 64bit System (Debian 7 Wheezy)
Version 1.0
Author: PlaNet Fox
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On Debian Wheezy, it is now possible to run a i386-linux-gnu application on an amd64-linux-gnu system. This is called Multiarch and refers to the capability of a system to install and run applications of multiple different binary targets on the same system.
On the old Debian Squeeze you had to install the package ia32-libs to get support for i386 packages on an AMD64 system. On Debian Wheezy this is different, you must add the architecture i386 with this command:
dpkg --add-architecture i386
Then run this:
apt-get update
You can now install packages that exist only in a 32bit version.
If you later install packages that have their own package server (instead of the official Debian repos) which only supports 64bit packages and not 32bit packages, you might get an error. You therefore have to add [arch=amd64] to your /etc/apt/sources.list.
Example for Proxmox:
# PVE packages provided by proxmox.com deb [arch=amd64] http://download.proxmox.com/debian wheezy pve
When you run
apt-get update
then you can install Proxmox without problems.
