Re: add etc/PROBLEMS entry for building 32-bit exe on 64-bit system

[Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>]

Andreas Schwab wrote:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>
>>     The right thing to do is to pass --build=i386-linux-gnu when configuring.
>>
>> If you do that, does it work correctly?
>
> I can't test myself, but it certainly works for ppc vs ppc64.


I wasn't aware of this method, so thanks for telling me about it.

By itself, it does not work for me. The build process just goes on to
call "gcc" as normal, which compiles x86_64 objects rather than i386
ones.

I found I had to do:

i) export CFLAGS=-m32; export LDFLAGS=-m32
    (to get i386 objects)

ii) Add "--build=i386-linux-gnu --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib --without-sound"

to configure's arguments. This is on RHEL4 x86_64. The --x option is
needed to stop the build trying to use the 64-bit libraries from
/usr/X11R6/lib64. The --sound option is I think needed just to work
around a RHEL bug (there seems to be no x86_64 package that provides a
32-bit libasound).


I imagine it's reasonable to expect configure to just Do The Right
Thing for all of these but the sound issue, without so much user
intervention? Actually, I guess it should auto-detect no compatible
sound libraries as well...