how to upgrade from i386-9.0 to amd64/9.x

[Arthur Chance]

On 28/01/2014 20:42, Matthew Seaman wrote:
> On 28/01/2014 16:02, Doug Eastick wrote:
>> Hi, I am currently running the following i386 9.0 on my firewall system.
>>
>>
>> FreeBSD jessie.mcd.on.ca 9.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE #0: Tue Jan  3 07:15:25 UTC 2012     root at obrian.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386
>>
>> I need to upgrade to 9.1 or 9.2 or higher but I'd also like to switch over to amd64 as
>> my install of i386 was a stupid mistake 2 years ago :-).
>>
>> tips on how to install /upgrade please?   Will the installer of amd64/9.2 notice my existing system?
>
>
> Re-install your system using the amd64 installation media.  Simple as that.
>
> You should back up anything you want to keep onto removable media or a
> different machine and plan on completely wiping out your current setup.
>    Even if you ultimately manage to preserve some parts of the current
> system, better to be prepared in case anihilation is the (desired or
> not) outcome.
>

Matthew's advice is the sensible answer and really should be the way you 
go as it's your firewall.

However, I'm in a similar position myself but the machine in question is 
an unimportant spare I'm using for playing around on, and I specifically 
want to get familiar with FreeBSD's cross building capabilities because 
I want to do some custom builds for Raspberry Pi soon (yes, I know about 
crochet). Therefore, I'm intending to do things the hard way for the 
practice, and if I screw up, it won't really matter. As part of my 
research on the topic I came across this page on the wiki:

https://wiki.freebsd.org/amd64/i386Migration

If that doesn't convince you to follow Matthew's advice, good luck. :-)