fedora /usr/lib vs /usr/lib64

Question

It seems i have two python2.6 folders located in /usr/lib vs /usr/lib64 respectively. Most python stuff (source) is in /usr/lib64/python2.6 but when in installed packages they have been put into /usr/lib/python2.6

How the system decides which directory to go when python is requested, and how it finds the packaged i installed?

Solution

Any source being installed to /usr/lib64 should be from installing src or devel packages which, by default, are picked by your architecture.

/usr/lib should only have 32bit libraries - likewise /usr/lib64 should be 64bit version. I've found that yum will occasionally install both 32 & 64 bit versions of some libraries, and there are some libraries yet to be ported to 64 bit so if you're particular app or library has installed to /usr/lib odds are its either just to satisfy some 32bit only apps dependency or yum messed up.

Comments

[Admin]

Really unfortunate that the lib path component is hard coded. It means that you need to provide an absolute path with --install-lib rather than just being able to swap lib for lib64.