What happened to the ia32-libs package?
The ia32-libs package was a hack to get 32-bit packages installed on a 64-bit installation. Since Ubuntu version 11.10 (Oneiric), Multi Arch has been added. One of the objectives for it is removing the ia32-libs package. Instead, you have to install the 32-bit libraries of a package with:
sudo apt-get install package-name:i386
You don't have to worry about this for packages in the standard repositories (e.g. the wine package). For external software, it's a bit more difficult because you have to find the dependencies manually. In that case, use your favorite search engine to find which libraries you need.
It seems that ia32-libs still exist, but merely as a convenience package to include common 32-bit libraries. This package now uses Multi Arch to install the 32-bit packages correctly.
Ubuntu 13.10
What happened?
The ia32-libs package has been completely replaced by lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0. This should not be a problem because its functionality is still there, just in other packages. However, we do not live in an ideal world where everyone maintains their packages and all software is FLOSS, so some packages still depend on the ia32-libs.
How can I install package x that depends on ia32-libs
There are 2 ways:
- You can repackage it manually so it does not depend on the
ia32-libsanymore. (preferred) - You can install ia32-libs from the Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail) repository (not preferred at all!, only if first method does not work)
1. Repackage old packages
I will use the citrix receiver as an example, but you can use this method for any .deb package:
First, download the citrix receiver .deb package from their website and make a temporary directory do do the hacking in.
mkdir ica_temp
Extract the package
dpkg-deb -x icaclient_13.0.0.256735_amd64.deb ica_temp
dpkg-deb --control icaclient_13.0.0.256735_amd64.deb ica_temp/DEBIAN
Open the file in gedit (or your favorite editor)
sudo -H gedit ica_temp/DEBIAN/control
Find the line that starts with Depends:.... remove ia32-libs and add lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0
Rebuild the modified package
dpkg -b ica_temp icaclient-modified.deb
And install it
sudo dpkg -i icaclient-modified.deb
sudo apt-get install -f
Installing the citrix receiver requires some hacking too. You can find the full installation instructions on the Ubuntu wiki
You can do this with any old .deb package that still depends on ia32-libs.
2. Install ia32-libs from raring repository
Please note that is it very bad practice to install old packages! Sadly, for some binary installers, you do not have any other choice.
You can download the ia32-libs package from the raring repository. Download it and install it manually, then the dependencies should be resolved.
I read that you are supposed to install the ia32-libs-multiarch package instead.
However it didn't work for me and I get this error
ia32-libs-multiarch:i386 : Depends: libgphoto2-2:i386 but it is not going to be installed.
The solution which worked for me was to install the following packages:
sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libgcc1:i386 gcc-4.6-base:i386 libstdc++5:i386 libstdc++6:i386