Documentation< Previous | Contents | Next >
8.3.5. Leveraging Multi-Arch Support
All Debian packages have an Architecture field in their control information. This field can contain either “all” (for packages that are architecture-independent) or the name of the architecture that it targets (like amd64, or armhf). In the latter case, by default, dpkg will only install the package if its architecture matches the host’s architecture as returned by dpkg --print-architecture.
This restriction ensures that you do not end up with binaries compiled for an incorrect architec- ture. Everything would be perfect except that (some) computers can run binaries for multiple architectures, either natively (an amd64 system can run i386 binaries) or through emulators.