The teamviewer installation error “package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)” is observed on when attempting an install on 64 bit versions of either Debian or Ubuntu. This article details how to solve this quickly and easily.

This comes from using a “multiarch” or “multiple-architecture” installer as opposed to one which has been expressly compiled for wither i386 or amd64 architectures; from the Debian site:

“Multiarch is the term being used to refer to the capability of a system to install and run applications of multiple different binary targets on the same system. For example running a i386-linux-gnu application on an amd64-linux-gnu system.”

Symptoms:

The error is observed once an install is attempted with:

sudo dpkg -i teamviewer_linux.deb

Solution

Download

The latest teamviewer package for linux can always be downloaded using the following:

wget http://www.teamviewer.com/download/teamviewer_linux.deb

Add i386 Architecture to dpkg

The following command will add the i386 directives to dpkg:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Update Sources

We now need to update our sources so that the system knows about the new i386 packages:

sudo apt-get update

Install Teamviewer

We can now go ahead and try to install Teamviewer again. This will partially work but some of its dependencies will be unfulfilled, shown with the errors “dependency problems – leaving unconfigured” – we will address this in the next step.

sudo dpkg -i teamviewer_linux.deb

Fix Unfulfilled Dependencies

Running the apt-get with the “-f” or “–fix-broken” switch will resolve any missing dependencies for installed programs:

sudo apt-get install -f


Start Teamviewer!

Open Teamviewer From the Menu:

From the applications menu, navigate to Internet and Teamviewer should be available for selection: