Is there a way to upgrade/move an already installed i386 installed 6.1 machine to amd64 without completely reinstalling? Is there a procedure to do so? -- Robert Blayzor, BOFH INOC, LLC rblayzor\@(inoc.net|gmail.com) PGP: 0x66F90BFC @ http://pgp.mit.edu Key fingerprint = 6296 F715 038B 44C1 2720 292A 8580 500E 66F9 0BFC A list is only as strong as its weakest link. - Don Knuth
On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 08:41:44AM -0500, Robert Blayzor wrote:> > Is there a way to upgrade/move an already installed i386 installed 6.1 > machine to amd64 without completely reinstalling? Is there a procedure > to do so? >There is a way to "upgrade" from i386 to amd64 on an installed system, but it is strongly suggested that you not attempt to do that. The advise I was given is to install from scratch, and know happiness. If you insist on fulfilling you masochistic desires, I believe /usr/src/UPDATING has a proceedure on doing so. Bruce -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "I like bad!" Bruce Burden Austin, TX. - Thuganlitha The Power and the Prophet Robert Don Hughes
On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 10:22:43AM -0600, Bruce Burden wrote:> On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 08:41:44AM -0500, Robert Blayzor wrote: > > > > Is there a way to upgrade/move an already installed i386 installed 6.1 > > machine to amd64 without completely reinstalling? Is there a procedure > > to do so?It has been covered on the amd64 list, IIRC.> There is a way to "upgrade" from i386 to amd64 on an installed > system, but it is strongly suggested that you not attempt to do > that. > > The advise I was given is to install from scratch, and know > happiness.Yeah, back up your data and config files and reinstall. And recompile your ports too, why bother switching to amd64 otherwise? Roland -- R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 187 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/attachments/20061031/41211db2/attachment.pgp
On 2006-10-31, Robert Blayzor wrote:> Is there a way to upgrade/move an already installed i386 installed 6.1 > machine to amd64 without completely reinstalling? Is there a procedure > to do so?Having just gone through the migration in the opposite direction, I would ask why you want to do this? The state of the software out there is disgracefully far from being ready for 64-bit platforms -- after wasting weeks in a vain attempt to get a workable development environment on my amd64 setup, I've just completed a move to i386 (by a fresh install). I now have a machine that has almost every port I want working and that still gives me considerable performance improvements over the genuine Intel 32-bit boxes I have. I won't be trying another amd64 setup for at least a couple more years. Greg
On Wed, 2006-Nov-01 06:14:03 +1000, Greg Black wrote:>The state of the software out there is disgracefully far from >being ready for 64-bit platforms -- after wasting weeks in a >vain attempt to get a workable development environment on my >amd64 setup, I've just completed a move to i386 (by a fresh >install).This doesn't tally with my experiences. I've had an amd64 laptop for most of the year and whilst I've got an i386 partition on it, I almost never use it. In my case, the only things I've missed are win32-codecs (which is unlikely to ever work on amd64) and the java plugin (and I can always use appletviewer if I really need to look at an applet). I've recently discovered that libffi isn't supported on amd64 but don't really need libffi. I agree there is some atrocious software around but things are vastly better than when I first wound up using a DEC Alpha in late 1998. (I'll also admit that I maintain some freeware software that is not 64-bit clean - but it started life on a PDP-11 and I've got more urgent issues to address in it). It would be nice to see the 32-bit emulation improved so that it is possible to build/run the i386 versions of ports on an amd64 system. This would be the best of both worlds. If I had any free time, I would even work on this myself. -- Peter Jeremy -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 187 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/attachments/20061101/7a8c6901/attachment.pgp
On 10/31/06, Robert Blayzor <rblayzor@inoc.net> wrote:> Is there a way to upgrade/move an already installed i386 installed 6.1 > machine to amd64 without completely reinstalling? Is there a procedure > to do so? >I spent all of last weekend trying to do this, with no solution determined. I read a couple of methods for doing this without reinstalling, but both indicated that a lot of know-how was needed and that the methods were neither complete nor bullet-proof. They both required access to the server to do magic things in single-user mode, which isn't available to me. For our purposes, I have decided to keep the machines as i386. I have two servers with identical hardware. One has 6.1/amd64, and the other has 6.1/i386. The i386 has a better ubench score. More importantly for us, it's impossible to build a 32-bit perl on the amd64, and we don't need a 64-bit perl. Our apache/mod_perl servers are 3X bigger on the amd64, and that is unsatisfactory.