Hardware migration and upgrade from 6.3 to 8.0 advice

[Frank Wissmann]

Achilleas Mantzios schrieb:

Hi!
> 			
> 			Hello,
> 
> i am facing this situation, where i need to upgrade from my 6.3 i386
> system, used as my main workstation, to a new hardware based on amd64
> (phenom II x4).

Well, you know that i386 is Intel, do you? It might work just moving the 
old kernel to a 64-bit system but I have no experience with it.
> 
> 
> 
> My current system is alive since 2005, so is full of code, scripts,
> configurations,look&feel,ssh keys etc.. that i would like to keep
> handy in my new system.
> 
> Also, currently i run gmirror, i am mentioning it, in case it affects something.
> 
> 
> 
> Since 2005, dealing with programming/support/etc.. i haven't done any
> upgrade task in FreeBSD, so i dont feel that confident in this regard.
> 
> 
> 
> I could:
> 
> a) install a brand new 8.0-RELEASE in the new hardware and then
> 
>  a1) just mount the old disks to the new system or
> 
>  a2) migrate /home user data directly to the new home dirs
> 
> b) migrate all current data to the new hardware, kernel/system
> included, and then try to upgrade to 8.0 (by sysinstall or
> makeworld/makekernel)

Item b) is not recommended. There are so many changes AFAIK that it is 
no clear update. You might do so but then you should update the 
following way from 6.3 - 7.0 - 7.1 - 7.2 - 8.0 as was recommended on 
this list earlier (search the archives, please, for further details if 
you choose this way).
For me, a clean install of 8.0 and a move from the old data to the fresh 
install is better. Use a2) !

Greetings Frank