Re: Migrating a server to Debian amd64?
On 5/26/05, Yassen Damyanov <yd@media-c.de> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Couple of years experience with Gentoo but none with Debian. Need to
> migrate an AMD-64 server running Gentoo Linux to Debian AMD-64.
Is there a reason for this? I am just asking because I don't see a
compelling reason to do so, but if there is, that may be relevant to
your question.
> Services:
> apache2,
> postfix + filters,
> ftp over TLS (vsftpd or proftpd),
> IMAPS (Courier-IMAP)
> SVN
Sounds fine, those packages are supposed to work.
Be aware that the environment for 32bit binaries (ia32-libs) is still
work in progress, so you should test that if you need it.
> (1) Is the AMD64 port of Debian usable for a production server?
That depends on your expectations. Since it is not release yet, there
are no security updates. Assuming that Sarge is released soon, you can
just install Sarge and follow its transition from testing to stable,
at which point there will be security updates.
> (2) Does anyone have / know about positive experience with the hardware
> above?
Not first hand, but it sounds fine. Hardware support is mostly kernel
related anyway, so it should not matter which user space you run. Note
that the Debian installer uses kernel 2.6.8 (is that still true?), so
if you need a more recent kernel, you may have to compile it by hand.
> (3) If (1) is to be answered with a definite 'yes', then what would you
> recommend as steps to *remotely* convert the gentoo box into Debian amd64?
My guts say that if you have to ask, you should not do it :-).
Seriously, you need experience with both systems, and with the
necessary procedure relative to your boot manager (be that grub or
lilo). So by all means try this at home before you do the real thing.
In theory, it is simple:
1. Install the new system on a free partition
2. chroot to that system, and install/configure the boot manager
3. reboot into the new system (assuming you did not make a mistake...)
If you don't have an amd64 system at home (shame!), you can use a
recent qemu (the debian package is too old) to emulate one.
Performance is quite horrible I heard (20 times slower?), but it
mostly works.
Thomas
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