32-bit package guidelines

Legacy 32-bit software can be built and installed on machines of another native architecture, such as x86_64. This article explains the production and conventions of such packages.

Arch package guidelines

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32-bit – CLR – CMake – Cross – DKMS – Eclipse – Electron – Font – Free Pascal – GNOME – Go – Haskell – Java – KDE – Kernel – Lisp – Meson – MinGW – Node.js – Nonfree – OCaml – Perl – PHP – Python – R – Ruby – Rust – Shell – VCS – Web – Wine

Package naming

• Prefix 32-bit versions of native packages with lib32-.

• Suffix packages that utilize the x32 ABI with -x32.

• Package decriptions should distinguish these from native counterparts, ie pkgdesc+=" (32-bit)".

Variables and parameters

lib32

Specify these bash variables in a PKGBUILD to tell the compiler to output 32-bit code:

export CFLAGS+=" -m32"
export CXXFLAGS+=" -m32"
export LDFLAGS+=" -m32"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH='/usr/lib32/pkgconfig'

File placement

Ensure lib32 package files do not conflict with native package files and include all necessary files, such as architecture-specific includes. For example, if a package builds using GNU Autoconf, specify the following to configure:

--program-suffix="-32" \
--lib{exec,}dir=/usr/lib32 \
--includedir=/usr/include/"$pkgbase"32 \
--build=i686-pc-linux-gnu