installing 64-bit kernel on a 32-bit system

[slamp slamp]

Has anyone does this in Fedora 12? I don't want to re-install the whole system.

[Randy Yates]

slamp slamp  writes:
> Has anyone does this in Fedora 12? I don't want to re-install the
> whole system.

I don't even think this is possible, and even if it is, my suspicion is
you're asking for a lot of trouble.

Just make a copy of your installed packages (rpm -qa), your home
directories, then do a fresh install of F12, update, edit the
package list to be a script of "yum installs" and run it, and
copy your home directories back over.

[John Wendel]

On 01/01/2010 06:24 AM, slamp slamp wrote:
> Has anyone does this in Fedora 12? I don't want to re-install the whole system.

Just for fun, on F11 32-bit system (not tried on F12), I downloaded the 
latest F11 64-bit kernel package and installed it with

rpm --nodeps --ignorearch --force <kernel package name>

It installed OK, since the kernel is pretty isolated from the rest of 
the system software.

Booted into runlevel 3, and it worked fine.

Now, X won't start because it needs the 64-bit nouveau driver. I don't 
know, but I suspect that you will need to install the entire 64-bit X 
server package(s). This will force you to install at least the 64-bit 
libc package.

If you just want a 64-bit server without X, this would work fine. 
Otherwise I imagine you will get caught in package dependency hell and 
I'm too lazy this morning to follow it to the bitter end.

Regards,

John

[Roberto Ragusa]

john wendel wrote:
> Just for fun, on F11 32-bit system (not tried on F12), I downloaded the
> latest F11 64-bit kernel package and installed it with
>
> rpm --nodeps --ignorearch --force <kernel package name>
>
> It installed OK, since the kernel is pretty isolated from the rest of
> the system software.
>
> Booted into runlevel 3, and it worked fine.
>
> Now, X won't start because it needs the 64-bit nouveau driver. I don't
> know, but I suspect that you will need to install the entire 64-bit X
> server package(s). This will force you to install at least the 64-bit
> libc package.

Interesting.
A similar problem had been described for the Nvidia closed driver;
same thing with noveau? not a good thing: the kernel-X interface
is expected to be cleaner in the open source driver...

[Ramesh.R]

You can use 32 bit OS in 64 bit processor.

32 bit address bus will use 64 bit. MSB 32 bits will be idle..

But for the case, 64 bit OS in a 32 bit processor is not possible by theory.

I did not think that it will work. Also i did not tried this. Any one tried
this combination and working fine?

Thanks.

Best Regards,
Ramesh Ramasamy.

On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 11:10 AM, Roberto Ragusa wrote:
> john wendel wrote:
> > Just for fun, on F11 32-bit system (not tried on F12), I downloaded the
> > latest F11 64-bit kernel package and installed it with
> >
> > rpm --nodeps --ignorearch --force <kernel package name>
> >
> > It installed OK, since the kernel is pretty isolated from the rest of
> > the system software.
> >
> > Booted into runlevel 3, and it worked fine.
> >
> > Now, X won't start because it needs the 64-bit nouveau driver. I don't
> > know, but I suspect that you will need to install the entire 64-bit X
> > server package(s). This will force you to install at least the 64-bit
> > libc package.
>
> Interesting.
> A similar problem had been described for the Nvidia closed driver;
> same thing with noveau? not a good thing: the kernel-X interface
> is expected to be cleaner in the open source driver...
>
> --
>   Roberto Ragusa    mail at robertoragusa.it
>
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> fedora-list mailing list
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> To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
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installing 64-bit kernel on a 32-bit system (nouveau issue?)

[Roberto Ragusa]

(warning: added cross posting to fedora-devel)

Ramesh.R wrote:
> You can use 32 bit OS in 64 bit processor.
>
> 32 bit address bus will use 64 bit. MSB 32 bits will be idle..
>
> But for the case, 64 bit OS in a 32 bit processor is not possible by theory.

No one is talking about that. You are not the only one in this thread
to have misunderstood.

Suppose you have a 64 bit processor.
You can run:

(a) 64 bit kernel + 64 bit apps: that would be a pure 64 bit system

(b) 64 bit kernel + 64 bit and 32 bit apps: that would be a multilib system,
where you keep some 32 apps for some reasons

A normal Fedora installation will give you case (a) or (b).

Now, consider this:

(c) 64 bit kernel + 32 bit apps: this is simply an extreme case of (b),
a 64/32 system where every app is 32.

Case (c) is interesting because:

- you can switch a 32 bit install to this mode by simply installing a 64
bit kernel (and switch back at grub level any time you want)

- the 64 bit kernel can handle all your memory better (faster) than 32
or 32+PAE kernel

- you avoid the increased memory consumption of 64 bit apps (pointers
are wider; there is big debate how much this impacts performance and
if it is able to demolish the other improvements of x86_64 such as
more regusters and SSE2 guaranteed avalability). Add to this that
when you run 32 and 64 bit apps together you have both versions of the
system libraries in memory, so the mem usage is higher.

Finally, the discussion is:
case (c) _SHOULD_ work perfectly in theory (see case (b)), but apparently
there are a couple of bad spots for things no one ever run in 32 bit
mode on 64 bit kernel. The first one I heard is the Nvidia closed source
driver (ok, we already know closed source = unfixable problems), but
this thread seems to suggest that nouveau has a similar issue.
My suspicion is that it is just an untested area and a fix could be done
easily. In any case, it looks like a show stopper for nvidia users.

Best regards.

[Patrick Bartek]

--- On Fri, 1/1/10, slamp slamp  wrote:
> Has anyone does this in Fedora 12? I
> don't want to re-install the whole system.

What did you do anyway?  If you installed 64-bit F12 on a 32-bit system, it's not going to run even if you do install the 64-bit kernel.  Everything is 64-bit, kernel, apps, utilities, etc.  On a 32-bit system, everything has to be 32-bit.  If that's the case, you're going to have to reinstall.

Now, you can run the 32-bit distro on a 64-bit system, and on a 64-bit install on 64-bit hardware run 32-bit apps concurrently with 64-bit ones, but not the other way around.

B

[Waleed Harbi]

*I think depends on your cpu type.

What is your CPU? Intel Core 2 Duo**
*---
Best Wishes,
Waleed Harbi
-----------------------------------------------------------
Try not to become a man of success
but rather try to become a man of value.

On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 5:24 PM, slamp slamp  wrote:
> Has anyone does this in Fedora 12? I don't want to re-install the whole
> system.
>
> --
> fedora-list mailing list
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> To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
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