Finding libjpeg.i686 , libpng.el6.i686 & compat-expat1.i686

[DrDave]

I have a trial of a bit of commercial software (HFSS), part of the Ansys electronic desktop), which I am trying to install on CentOS 7.8

https://www.ansys.com/products/electron ... cs-desktop

It uses a license manager which is basically flexLM, although it is called FlexNET. It is the usual PITA that flexLM has always been.

Despite HFSS is supposed to be supported on CentoOS 7.6, 7.7, 7.8 and 8.0, the word "CentOS" is not mentioned anywhere in the installation instructions.

https://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/HFSS/ ... -Linux.pdf

The nearest is a reference to Redhat 6.1. However, it is asking for one to install numerous libraries. These 3 can't be installed with yum - at least not without finding the packages, which I can't seem to do.

No package libjpeg.i686 available.
No package libpng.el6.i686 available.
No package compat-expat1.i686 available.

I managed to find this one on an Indian website

$ wget https://linux.cc.iitk.ac.in/mirror/cent ... x.i686.rpm
# yum install compat-expat1-1.95.8-16.el7.nux.i686.rpm

but for the others, I seem to be going around in circles. I find a webpage the library on, and what looks looks like a hyperlink to a .rpm, but it actually a hyperlink to a .rpm.html. For example

https://centos.pkgs.org/7/centos-x86_64 ... 6.rpm.html

Can anyone suggest the best way to install the libraries mentioned in the PDF at https://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/HFSS/ ... -Linux.pdf

[TrevorH]

The el6 in those names means that they are packages for CentOS 6. You should not install CentOS 6 packages on CentOS 7. Try

yum install libjpeg-turbo.i686 libpng.i686

which should both be in CentOS 7 yum repos already.

For compat-expat1.i686 you will need to add a third party yum repo: nux-dextop which has compat-expat1.i686. Google nux-dextop, download and install his el7 repo rpm and then edit /etc/yum.repos.d/nux-dextop.repo and add the line includepkgs=compat-expat1 and save it. Now yum install compat-expat1.i686

Don't just go round downloading random packages that sound like they might be the thing you need.

[DrDave]

Thank you for your help. I will follow your instructions.

Given this software starts at £21,000/year, with another £30,000 needed to be added for access to 32 cores, the instructions should be a bit clearer.

Dave

[Whoever]

Why does this need 32-bit binaries?

FlexLM has support for 64-bit Linux. Normally, you will need to install one of the "lsb" packages for FlexLM.

What requires libjpeg.i686?

[DrDave]

My best guess as to why it needs need 32-bit libraries, is that on a cheap bit of software like this (only £21,000/year, which is around $28,560 USD/year), they can not justify the time to make it fully 64-bit.

It’s the same problem with adding multi-threaded support. It only supports 4-cores as standard (less than my mobile phone), but the extra effort to add support for 8 cores adds £15,000 per year.

Likewise with creating instructions. Apart from the front page, which says 2021 R1, I don’t think they have been updated since Redhat 6.1.

Dave (not exactly impressed with this software)

[jlehtone]

Some companies sell 64-bit binary blobs that have 32-bit installer ...