Binary upgrade 7.1 i386 -> amd64 ?

Frederique Rijsdijk frederique at isafeelin.org
Fri Mar 13 01:40:08 PDT 2009


Erik Trulsson wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 09:05:12AM +0100, Frederique Rijsdijk wrote:
>> I'm planning to binary upgrade a machine that's now running i386
>> 7.1-RELEASE-p3 to AMD64. Mainly because the machine has 8GB of memory
>> and I don't like the PAE limitations.
>>
>> I've done this a couple of times before with 4.x -> 6.x but all remained
>> i386.
>>
>> Are there any pitfalls when doing an upgrade of i386 to amd64 or should
>> it be the same as any binary upgrade?
> 
> I don't know if a binary upgrade from i386 to amd64 is even possible, but I
> am fairly certain it is not supported.  Source upgrades from i386 to amd64
> are possible, but not trivial and not recommended.
> 
> The recommended procedure for changing from i386 to amd64 is to make a
> backup of all important data on the machine, and then do a fresh install of
> amd64 after which any needed data is restored from the backup.
> 



The machine has an extra 1TB disks for backups, so that part is already
'done'. Perhaps my only existing worry is that I will not be able to
read the existing filesystems after the upgrade.



More information about the freebsd-questions mailing list