Bug#438577: [lists] Bug#438577 closed by "Frank S. Thomas" <frank at thomas-alfeld.de> (Re: Bug#438577: boinc-client: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu not found error message returns)

[Graham Cobb]

Thanks for the info.  Unfortunately, the whole purpose of the previous 
workround was to deal with unresponsive server administrators: if they were 
not unresponsive they could easily have packaged up their i686 images into a 
package for x86_64 platforms without even recompiling!  The problem was 
server administrators who thought the x86_64 base was too small to be worth 
worrying about.  Those same administrators are unlikely to update their 
server software any time soon ("if it aint broke, don't fix it").

I believe it IS a significant Debian regression to remove the Debian-specific 
instructions in the README on how to workround unhelpful server 
administrators and the scripts to make it easy to do.  I also think it is a 
bug to remove the previous workrounds during the installation without an easy 
way to restore them if the new mechanism does not work.

Graham

P.S. Any idea how/where I can find the previous package so that I can revert 
to the previous behaviour?