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I am currently running Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit.

Running apt-get update && apt-get upgrade starts the updating and upgrading procedure.

I was wondering ,Since i have installed 64 bit amd64 system then why does the command checks even the 32 bit i386 Repositories 

Get:14 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main amd64 Packages [658 B]                                                                                            
Get:15 http://ppa.launchpad.net precise/main i386 Packages [658 B]

This is common for almost all the official Ubuntu repositories.

Are they mandatory required for update process or can they be removed if not required by the installed architecture at all.

atenz
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    Do you have any i386 packages installed (you might be surprised...)? Certain applications on an amd64 system are either 32 bit themselves (no 64-bit alternative) or require 32 bit libraries (ehh... speculating but maybe for a development environment or running 32bit Wine applications, etc.). In either of these cases apt would check the i386 repositories to look for updates for these packages. – adempewolff May 24 '12 at 09:11
  • similar if not a duplicate? http://askubuntu.com/questions/66875/how-to-disable-multiarch-support/66893#66893 – fossfreedom May 24 '12 at 09:27
  • @fossfreedom: similar, but not a dupe IMO. Can you just copy/paste your above answer here instead of linking considering it's short and sweet? – ish May 24 '12 at 12:12

1 Answers1

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It is very useful to have both architectures in your repository list for the simple reason in that where you have a 32bit only application, it will install correctly.

Where you have both a 64bit and 32bit package in a PPA, then the 64bit app will automatically install.

However, you can install the 32bit if you wish by appending :i386 against the package - thus

sudo apt-get install [foo-package]:i386

If you dont want the 32bit repo's then you can disable this using the linked Q&A.

Linked Question:

  1. How to disable multiarch support?
Community
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fossfreedom
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  • Thanks , it will also help in reducing the Update and Upgrade time . I just hope all the dependencies and Libraries are also retained for 64 version. – atenz May 24 '12 at 13:17