Can I install `libssl-dev:i386` on x86_64 system without losing important packages?

Question

On my x86_64 12.10 system, when I try to

apt-get install libssl-dev:i386

apt wants to remove a bunch of things:

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  build-essential dkms g++ g++-multilib gcc gcc-multilib hardening-wrapper nvidia-current
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libc6-dev:i386 libssl-dev:i386 linux-libc-dev:i386 zlib1g-dev:i386

Why does this happen? How can I install libssl-dev:i386 without losing gcc?

I noticed that libssl-dev and libssl-dev:i386 have no "Multiarch" field reported by apt-cache show, which I think means they cannot coexist. ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MultiarchSpec )

Solution

libssl is not multiarch compatible at the moment.

See: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=689093

Comments

[Brendan Long]

For future readers: This seems to have been fixed in Ubuntu 15.04. apt-get install libssl-dev:i386 works fine now.

[Tomáš Zato - Reinstate Monica]

For readers from even further future: apt-get install libssl-dev:i386 throws E: Unable to locate package libssl-dev, so better make time machine and run back in past.

[David]

If you add the i386 architecture, then the libssl-dev:i386 package becomes available. I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 64bit. sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install libssl1.0.0:i386.

[Erik Aronesty]

Cross compiled and built android i386 and arm libs on Ubuntu 16, using these packages and static linking, seems to work ok.