5.5.2. Combining Multiple Versions of Library Files into One Image

The build system offers the ability to build libraries with different target optimizations or architecture formats and combine these together into one system image. You can link different binaries in the image against the different libraries as needed for specific use cases. This feature is called "Multilib."

An example would be where you have most of a system compiled in 32-bit mode using 32-bit libraries, but you have something large, like a database engine, that needs to be a 64-bit application and uses 64-bit libraries. Multilib allows you to get the best of both 32-bit and 64-bit libraries.

While the Multilib feature is most commonly used for 32 and 64-bit differences, the approach the build system uses facilitates different target optimizations. You could compile some binaries to use one set of libraries and other binaries to use a different set of libraries. The libraries could differ in architecture, compiler options, or other optimizations.

Several examples exist in the meta-skeleton layer found in the Source Directory: