If you are using 64bit version of Arch Linux, and you want to be able to run 32bit applications on your system, to do so, you need to enable multilib repository.
multilib repository is a repository on Arch Linux, that allows you to download 32 bit and be able to use 32 bit applications on a 64bit Arch Linux system.
multilib is not enabled by default, which means you need to enable it manually. Enabling multilib is easy, and it can be done by making a small change on pacman configuration file.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to enable multilib repository on Arch Linux.
Step 1 - Open pacman.conf
pacman.conf is the main configuration file that pacman uses. Before enabling multilib repository, first you need to open pacman.conf using a text editor.
pacman.conf is located on /etc/ directory. /etc/pacman.conf
So to open pacman.conf using nano text editor, simply run the command below.
sudo nano /etc/pacman.conf
Step 2 - Enable multilib repository
Multilib repository is disabled by default, and it is commented on pacman.conf. So to enable multilib repository, all you have to do is to uncomment the multilib line.
1) Once you open pacman.conf with a text editor, scroll down at the bottom of the file and you should see a similar line.
#[multilib]
#include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
2) Now to enable multilib, simply uncomment it, and it should look like this.
[multilib]
include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
3) Once uncommented, save changes. Depending on the text editor that you are using, if you are using nano text editor, then you can easily save changes you made on pacman.conf by pressing CTRL + X, and confirm with Y, then finally press enter.
Step 3 - Update your system
Now that multilib repository is enabled, proceed to update your system so that you can use multilib repository.
sudo pacman -SyuAnd you should see multilib repository
Conclusion
In this tutorial, you learned how to enable multilib repository on Arch Linux.
By now you should be able to install and run 32bit applications on your 64bit Arch Linux system.
