On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 07:16:32PM +0200, Emanoil Kotsev wrote: > Andrei Popescu wrote: > > > On Wed,16.Sep.09, 07:21:52, Robert P. J. Day wrote: > >> > >> i've mentioned this before, but by the end of this week, i want to > >> move my entire current (fully-updated) lenny install from an old > >> 32-bit system to a new 64-bit dell server, and i'm open to advice on > >> the easiest and most error-free way to do that. > > > > Hello Robert, > > > > I see you already have the new system installed. Not very helpful for > > now, but for your next migration it might be easier if you first copy > > over passwd, group, shadow... and then install the server packages (the > > ones that create users in the 101-999 range). This way you would be able > > to copy most (all?) data files over without worrying about UID mismatch. > > > > Regards, > > Andrei > > > Hi, this is a question I was going to ask in few weeks as I planned to learn > how I can migrate from 32 to 64 bit debian distro. > well, the OP here is really trying to migrate data and services from one machine to another and coincidentally, the new machine is 64 bit. What you seem to be suggesting is different -- namely a migration from 32 to 64 bit in place. > It looks like it's not possible to just upgrade i.e. replacing the sources > in apt/source.list? I believe that is correct. It is almost certainly not supported. That said, I have done it, as an exercise. The work involved is definitely greater than would be involved in just reinstalling. > > Is it really that hard to switch from 32 to 64? yes. you have to replace 32 bit binaries with 64 bit binaries on a running system. That's not easy. > > Is it not possible to replace the sources and i.e. dpkg --reinstall install > <package>? partially sure, but it's more involved than that. Truly the easiest solution is to do dpkg --get-selections > /some/safe/file/location/my_selections reinstall the system with the 64 bit installer, preserving /home and perhaps a few other places and then: dpkg --set-selections < my_selections and aptitude upgrade or whatever. .02 A
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