using i386 ports on amd64

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2012-Jun-02 03:47:43 -0500, Lars Eighner <portsuser at larseighner.com> wrote:
>I was a little bewildered to discover my machine was amd64 when
>it had two Celeron processors.*

An amd64 CPU can run either FreeBSD/i386 or FreeBSD/amd64.  It's up to
you which variant to run.  You can run i386 code on FreeBSD/amd64 but
there are some tricks to get it to work if you need non-base libraries.

>works on the corporate level, but that left a number of things I use
>stranded as
>
>ONLY_FOR_ARCHS= i386
>
>among them graphics/zgv.

Normally "ONLY_FOR_ARCHS" implies that the port relies on a binary
blob or includes CPU-specific code so it won't (can't) build on any
other architecture.  In the case of graphics/zgv, there's no reason
given.  It's possible that's an error on the part of the original
submitter.

>Because I am a life-on-the-edge I have discovered that some of them actually
>will compile and run on this machine, and in particular that once I subverted
>the ONLY_FOR_ARCHS= graphics/zgv got recompiled and reinstalled during the
>PNG bump which we are all having fun with right now.
>
>So have I armed a ticking time bomb that will somehow blow up an orphanage
>somewhere down the road?

That depends why it was marked "ONLY_FOR_ARCHS" but if it builds and
runs then it'll probably be OK.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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