I do a lot of photo processing... things like generating 200 jpgs from raw files at one go. My laptop has 4GB of RAM but is currently only using 3GB because I am running a 32 bit kernel.
uname -a Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i586 #1 SMP Fri Sep 25 04:30:19 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Sooner or later I want to upgrade to a 64 bit kernel and 8 GB of RAM. Other than this article, I can't find any information on the subject.
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/123800
I am looking to do the upgrade WITHOUT reinstalling Fedora. I've done enough re installations in the past to know that I don't want to go there.
Has anyone done crossgraded from 32 to 64 bit ? What advice do you have to offer ?
Thanks
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Linuxguy123 linuxguy123@gmail.com wrote:
I do a lot of photo processing... things like generating 200 jpgs from raw files at one go. My laptop has 4GB of RAM but is currently only using 3GB because I am running a 32 bit kernel.
uname -a Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i586 #1 SMP Fri Sep 25 04:30:19 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Sooner or later I want to upgrade to a 64 bit kernel and 8 GB of RAM. Other than this article, I can't find any information on the subject.
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/123800
I am looking to do the upgrade WITHOUT reinstalling Fedora. I've done enough re installations in the past to know that I don't want to go there.
Has anyone done crossgraded from 32 to 64 bit ? What advice do you have to offer ?
Have you really done enough upgrades? I think not. If you did, you would know that the best advice is to back up your files and perform a clean install.
Thanks
On Tue, 2009-09-29 at 19:29 -0700, Kam Leo wrote:
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Linuxguy123 linuxguy123@gmail.com wrote:
I do a lot of photo processing... things like generating 200 jpgs from raw files at one go. My laptop has 4GB of RAM but is currently only using 3GB because I am running a 32 bit kernel.
uname -a Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i586 #1 SMP Fri Sep 25 04:30:19 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Sooner or later I want to upgrade to a 64 bit kernel and 8 GB of RAM. Other than this article, I can't find any information on the subject.
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/123800
I am looking to do the upgrade WITHOUT reinstalling Fedora. I've done enough re installations in the past to know that I don't want to go there.
Has anyone done crossgraded from 32 to 64 bit ? What advice do you have to offer ?
Have you really done enough upgrades? I think not. If you did, you would know that the best advice is to back up your files and perform a clean install.
No, that is NOT the best choice. I've re installed clean more than 4x and its a BIG pain setting things up again. I have a lot of software installed and not all of it is a simple yum command, ie custom versions of Eclipse, java, etc.
Just like we shouldn't be telling everyone to do a 'yum clean all' when its not necessary, nor should we be telling people to reinstall.
Linuxguy123 wrote:
On Tue, 2009-09-29 at 19:29 -0700, Kam Leo wrote:
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Linuxguy123 linuxguy123@gmail.com wrote:
I do a lot of photo processing... things like generating 200 jpgs from raw files at one go. My laptop has 4GB of RAM but is currently only using 3GB because I am running a 32 bit kernel.
uname -a Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i586 #1 SMP Fri Sep 25 04:30:19 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Sooner or later I want to upgrade to a 64 bit kernel and 8 GB of RAM. Other than this article, I can't find any information on the subject.
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/123800
I am looking to do the upgrade WITHOUT reinstalling Fedora. I've done enough re installations in the past to know that I don't want to go there.
Has anyone done crossgraded from 32 to 64 bit ? What advice do you have to offer ?
Have you really done enough upgrades? I think not. If you did, you would know that the best advice is to back up your files and perform a clean install.
No, that is NOT the best choice. I've re installed clean more than 4x and its a BIG pain setting things up again. I have a lot of software installed and not all of it is a simple yum command, ie custom versions of Eclipse, java, etc.
Just like we shouldn't be telling everyone to do a 'yum clean all' when its not necessary, nor should we be telling people to reinstall.
Honestly unless you are very experienced with 64 Bit systems, then I would suggest a clean install.
If you really won't consider this then I would suggest that you free up some hard drive space so that you can create a new partition. Then do a minimal 64 Bit install to this partition almost like you wanted a Dual Boot setup. Then you can work through migrating your data or work out a way to use the data in place.
I haven't specifically does this with Fedora, but I have with CentOS. If you compile your own software I strongly suggest you experiment with this to ensure that 64 Bit libraries are found when you expect them to be rather than the system finding 32 Bit Libraries First.
Good Luck
Linuxguy123 wrote:
On Tue, 2009-09-29 at 19:29 -0700, Kam Leo wrote:
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Linuxguy123 linuxguy123@gmail.com wrote:
I do a lot of photo processing... things like generating 200 jpgs from raw files at one go. My laptop has 4GB of RAM but is currently only using 3GB because I am running a 32 bit kernel.
uname -a Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i586 #1 SMP Fri Sep 25 04:30:19 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Sooner or later I want to upgrade to a 64 bit kernel and 8 GB of RAM. Other than this article, I can't find any information on the subject.
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/123800
I am looking to do the upgrade WITHOUT reinstalling Fedora. I've done enough re installations in the past to know that I don't want to go there.
Has anyone done crossgraded from 32 to 64 bit ? What advice do you have to offer ?
Have you really done enough upgrades? I think not. If you did, you would know that the best advice is to back up your files and perform a clean install.
No, that is NOT the best choice. I've re installed clean more than 4x and its a BIG pain setting things up again. I have a lot of software installed and not all of it is a simple yum command, ie custom versions of Eclipse, java, etc.
Just like we shouldn't be telling everyone to do a 'yum clean all' when its not necessary, nor should we be telling people to reinstall.
Going fully 64bit will require all these custom applications to be re-installed anyways. The configuration files should work though.
Kill two things at once and wait until F12 comes out and then install it.
Time wise, it could be quicker to do a clean install and re-configure than trying to clean the upgrade. I am now setting up a configuration directory that keeps a backup of all the locally configured files on my machine when I do an install or upgrade as an upgrade may toast the configuration files as well.
Robin Laing wrote:
Linuxguy123 wrote:
On Tue, 2009-09-29 at 19:29 -0700, Kam Leo wrote:
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Linuxguy123 linuxguy123@gmail.com wrote:
I do a lot of photo processing... things like generating 200 jpgs from raw files at one go. My laptop has 4GB of RAM but is currently only using 3GB because I am running a 32 bit kernel.
uname -a Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i586 #1 SMP Fri Sep 25 04:30:19 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Sooner or later I want to upgrade to a 64 bit kernel and 8 GB of RAM. Other than this article, I can't find any information on the subject.
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/123800
I am looking to do the upgrade WITHOUT reinstalling Fedora. I've done enough re installations in the past to know that I don't want to go there.
Has anyone done crossgraded from 32 to 64 bit ? What advice do you have to offer ?
Have you really done enough upgrades? I think not. If you did, you would know that the best advice is to back up your files and perform a clean install.
No, that is NOT the best choice. I've re installed clean more than 4x and its a BIG pain setting things up again. I have a lot of software installed and not all of it is a simple yum command, ie custom versions of Eclipse, java, etc.
Just like we shouldn't be telling everyone to do a 'yum clean all' when its not necessary, nor should we be telling people to reinstall.
Going fully 64bit will require all these custom applications to be re-installed anyways. The configuration files should work though.
Kill two things at once and wait until F12 comes out and then install it.
Time wise, it could be quicker to do a clean install and re-configure than trying to clean the upgrade. I am now setting up a configuration directory that keeps a backup of all the locally configured files on my machine when I do an install or upgrade as an upgrade may toast the configuration files as well.
Not just reinstalled, but recompiled, maked (sp?), installed and tested.
Linuxguy123, take Robin's advice and wait for Fedora 12 to switch to 64-bit.
Alternatively, you can switch to using a PAE kernel, but I believe that also requires a rebuild of each application. It will, however, provide you with access to your full 4GB without having to go to 64-bit (some applications simply don't work uder 64-bit, no matter whether you recompile from scratch).
Linuxguy123 writes:
I do a lot of photo processing... things like generating 200 jpgs from raw files at one go. My laptop has 4GB of RAM but is currently only using 3GB because I am running a 32 bit kernel.
Why led you to this conclusion? 32 bit Linux is perfectly capable of addressing 4 GB+ of RAM. You need to install a PAE kernel, which should already be the case, by default.
If you are not already booting a PAE kernel, just install it.
Sooner or later I want to upgrade to a 64 bit kernel and 8 GB of RAM. Other than this article, I can't find any information on the subject.
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/123800
I am looking to do the upgrade WITHOUT reinstalling Fedora. I've done
Someone who has sufficient technical experience and know-how might be able to pull this off. But, to be perfectly straight, if you have to ask how to do this, you do not have the requisite know how.
Here's what needs to be done, and you judge for yourself if you think you'll be able to handle something like this:
1) force-install a 64-bit kernel, 64 bit glibc, and 64 bit init. I'm pretty sure that the 32 bit mkinitrd will barf when it tries to assemble an initrd for the 64 bit kernel. You'll have to unpack your current mkinitrd, look inside, enumerate all the modules that it loads, than manually build an equivalent 64 bit initrd, with the analogous kernel modules. Cross your fingers, and attempt to boot the new kernel into single user mode.
2) Proceed to replace your RPMs with their corresponding 64 bit versions, by hand. I'm rather skeptical that "yum upgrade" will figure it out automatically. More than likely, neither yum nor rpm will have any idea how to do this. This will have to be spoon fed. You'll have to identify what all the dependencies are, between various packages, and update/convert them in the right order.
All the time, have a rescue disk available in case some detail gets missed, and you end up with an unbootable brick. Plus, the know-how to to boot a rescue disk, mount your partitions, and unfix whatever you fixed that broke everything.
Not to mention the task of figuring out how to suck in the new 64 bit packages into the system, from single-user mode. I suppose that you can either burn them to a DVD beforehand (slow!), or pull them in over the network, in which case you'll need to know how to bring up networking from single-user mode, and figure out the exact list of packages to upgrade, at once, in order to convert all packages that support networking from 32 to 64 bits, at once, so that you can reestablish network connectivty after cutting over to 64 bit packages, for that part.
enough re installations in the past to know that I don't want to go there.
As best as a reinstall is, I'd rather do that, then try this kind of a cross-grade. Even though I believe I can pull it off, myself.
But, if all you want is more RAM, all you really need is the PAE kernel, which I believe can handle up to 16 GB. A single 32 bit process is still limited to accessing 3 GB max, but overall the system will be able to use up to 16 gigs. If that works out for you, this is your path of least resistance.
On Tue, 2009-09-29 at 23:32 -0400, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
Linuxguy123 writes:
I do a lot of photo processing... things like generating 200 jpgs from raw files at one go. My laptop has 4GB of RAM but is currently only using 3GB because I am running a 32 bit kernel.
Why led you to this conclusion? 32 bit Linux is perfectly capable of addressing 4 GB+ of RAM. You need to install a PAE kernel, which should already be the case, by default.
If you are not already booting a PAE kernel, just install it.
Sooner or later I want to upgrade to a 64 bit kernel and 8 GB of RAM. Other than this article, I can't find any information on the subject.
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/123800
I am looking to do the upgrade WITHOUT reinstalling Fedora. I've done
Someone who has sufficient technical experience and know-how might be able to pull this off. But, to be perfectly straight, if you have to ask how to do this, you do not have the requisite know how.
<snip>
But, if all you want is more RAM, all you really need is the PAE kernel, which I believe can handle up to 16 GB. A single 32 bit process is still limited to accessing 3 GB max, but overall the system will be able to use up to 16 gigs. If that works out for you, this is your path of least resistance.
Thanks for the reply. I installed the PAE kernel.
- force-install a 64-bit kernel, 64 bit glibc, and 64 bit init. I'm pretty
sure that the 32 bit mkinitrd will barf when it tries to assemble an initrd for the 64 bit kernel. You'll have to unpack your current mkinitrd, look inside, enumerate all the modules that it loads, than manually build an equivalent 64 bit initrd, with the analogous kernel modules. Cross your fingers, and attempt to boot the new kernel into single user mode.
Not how I would do it - start with a complete backup, test the backup and then boot a 64bit rescue cd image. Some of the updates you need to do will require a 64bit kernel is actually running.
From there you can install the 64bit fedora-release package and the 64bit
yum/rpm packages which in turn will drag in much of the 64bit library stuff. After that you can update various other things like mkinitrd, kernel, module utilities etc
hand. I'm rather skeptical that "yum upgrade" will figure it out automatically. More than likely, neither yum nor rpm will have any idea how
It won't do the updating itself because they are not "upgrades". It will figure out dependancies happily enough and pull in needed 64bit libraries.
Another problem is space - you need to get a lot of 64bit stuff on before pruning 32bit libraries etc
Doable but only if you know the system well and can think on your feet
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Alan Cox -
Clint Dilks -
Kam Leo -
linux guy -
Paul -
Robin Laing -
Sam Varshavchik