Bug#72862: apt can't handle multiple architectures

[Gerd Knorr <kraxel@goldbach.in-berlin.de>]

package: apt
version: 0.3.19

I'm running a powerpc box (iMac) with debian (woody) for some time.  The
apt package cache is located on a nfs filesytem (/home/ftp) which has
(compared to /var) plenty of free space.

This weekend I decided to install debian on my i386 box too.  Installed
potato from CD (worked fine).  Then I configured apt to use the same
directory in /home/ftp for the apt package cache, copyed the sources.list
from the iMac and upgraded the intel box to woody (after setting libc6 to
"hold" *grin*).  Worked nice too, apt found all the arch=all packages in
the cache and decided to download only the i386 binary packages.

Now the problems with this setup:

(1) I've tried to make the ppc and i386 box share the package lists too
    (/var/state/apt/lists).  The idea was to make them share the package
    information for source packages and binary-all.  Did'nt work.  Running
    "apt-get update" on the powerpc box deleted the package lists for the
    i386 architecture.  Same problem the other way around...

(2) I can't clean up the cache any more.  "apt-get -s autoclean" on the
    i386 box says it would delete all the powerpc packages.  Right now
    there is enouth free space on the file system, but in the long run
    I'd like to be able to delete obsolete packages...

To me it looks like basic problem is that apt wants to delete everything
it does'nt know about.  Any chance to make apt care about binary-<me>,
binary-all and source packages only and ignore everything else (especially
packages / package lists for other architectures) ?

  Gerd