Fat binary

From TheLinuxVault

A Fat binary is a binary that is coded to install and function on more than one instruction set architecture, thus allowing it to run on more than one processor architecture. So far, only two computing companies have used fat binaries in their products: Apple Inc. (which calls them "universal binaries") and NeXT.

[edit] Fat binaries in Linux?

The fat binary approach, since the advertising blitz by Apple Inc. from 2005-2006, has been proposed infrequently for Linux-based operating systems.[1]

Fat binaries, however, are seen by skeptics as being intensive on hard drive space. Also, fat binary applications may place a toll on the servers of the distributions, as well as download time.

There is currently no development environment that creates multiprocessor architecture packages for Linux-based operating systems. However, a "multiarch" version of Debian has been proposed since 2005. [2] [3] [4]