One complaint I hear about [Fedora](http://fedora.redhat.com) on x86_64 is that Flash and Java plugins can’t be used with the 64-bit Firefox because they only are available as 32-bit. I don’t normally need those plugins at home but I can see how people would want them.
I discovered that the easiest way to install 32-bit Firefox (and other 32-bit programs) is to make new i386-specific versions of the repositories. The only problem is that the mirror lists uses the architecture and can’t be used. Notice that I have them disabled by default but they can enabled in yum with –enablerepo.
/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-core-i386.repo:
[core-i386]
name=Fedora Core $releasever – i386
baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/$releasever/i386/os/
#mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors/fedora-core-$releasever
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY
/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates-i386.repo:
[updates-i386]
name=Fedora Core $releasever – i386 – Updates
baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/$releasever/i386/
#mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors/updates-released-fc$releasever
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-extras-i386.repo:
[extras-i386]
name=Fedora Extras $releasever – i386
baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/extras/$releasever/i386/
#mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors/fedora-extras-$releasever
enabled=0
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-extras
gpgcheck=1
Then, once those are all setup, do:
yum –enablerepo=\*-i386 install firefox.i386
The firefox.i386 will can even be installed at the same time as firefox.x86_64. The /usr/bin/firefox script will run the 64-bit firefox. Either remove firefox.x86_64 package, or make a new binary (/usr/bin/firefox-32) without the lines referencing /usr/lib64.