Re: converting from i386 to amd64 without rebuilding

[dam@nc.rr.com]

>>>>> "Steve" == Steve Lane <drsteve@rna.berkeley.edu> writes:

    Steve> On Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 03:41:31PM -0500, Lennart Sorensen
    Steve> wrote:
    >> On Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 11:49:20AM -0800, Steve Lane wrote: >
    >> Greetings.  We've got a 4-core (2 x Core 2 Duo) server that was
    >> originally > built as an i386 machine, then converted to the
    >> i386 bigmem kernel, > and *then* converted to the amd64
    >> kernel. None of the packages on the > machine, however, are
    >> from the amd64 port - they're all i386.
    >> > 
    >> > Is there some simple and straightforward (or even
    >> not-so-simple or > straightforward) way of converting the
    >> machine from the i386 port > to the amd64 port without
    >> rebuilding it from scratch using the amd64 > installer, i.e. to
    >> reinstall all the i386-specific packages from the > amd64
    >> repository?
    >> 
    >> I can't think of any way.  You can create a chroot with
    >> debootstrap, but that's essentially just a harder way to run a
    >> fresh install.
    >> 
    >> After all you can't have both the 32 and 64 bit version of
    >> libc6 installed at once in the same place, so you can't replace
    >> it while other packages which depend on it are using the other
    >> bitness.

    Steve> Yeah - I discovered that the hard way ;)

    Steve> That's more or less what I figured.  Guess I'll be
    Steve> rebuilding at some point :)

    Steve> Thanks,

    Steve> -- Steve Lane System, Network and Security Administrator
    Steve> Doudna Lab Biomolecular Structure and Mechanism Group UC
    Steve> Berkeley


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yes, there is... all you _have_ to do is make sure you boot from a
64 bit kernel, and you also have all your core 64 bit libs/bas-utils
installed in a root fs... so, you can install the 64 bit the same way
you install a chroot on a 64bit, you install a 64 into a chroot on a
32 bit install, then change the /boot/grub/menu.1st to point to the 64
bit kernel, with the 64 bit chroot as the root fs.
Dave

-- 
... the dude abides ... GNU -- It's Freedom baby, yeah!