Safest way to go from x86 to x86_64

[seth vidal]

On Tue, 2010-12-14 at 10:47 -0800, Philip Prindeville wrote:
> On 12/14/10 6:46 AM, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 02:35:24PM +0000, Paul Johnson wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> On 14 December 2010 14:27, Richard W.M. Jones<rjones at redhat.com>  wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 02:07:37PM +0000, Paul Johnson wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Is there a safe way to install the x86_64 system over the 32 bit version
> >>> and
> >>>> then clean off the 32 bit stuff that is no longer needed? If I was using
> >>>> f14, I'd just trash the drive and then install, but I've got things how I
> >>>> want them under rawhide.
> >>> Not really.  I would definitely suggest that you reinstall.
> >>>
> >>> I thought that would be the case - just wanted to check to ensure it's not
> >> something I can do another way.
> >>
> >> Okay, let's try another. Is there a way to grab a list of the packages
> >> installed and use a network installer to do the job based on the list?
> > I guess you can do:
> >
> > rpm -qa --qf '%{name}\n'>  kickstart
> >
> > and try to construct a kickstart file out of that ...
> >
> > Rich.
> >
> 
> Also, use "rpm -Va" to get a list of config files that have been modified.
> 
> Unfortunately, there's no way to detect additional files (in /etc, etc) that aren't owned by a package but represent additional configuration state you might want to bring over.
> 
> I usually make a copy of config files (cp -p $file $file.orig) before I edit them the first time... then just do "locate .orig" to find them all.

Sure you can:

for file in `find /etc`
do 
 rpm -qf $file > /dev/null
 if [ $? != 0 ]; then
   echo $file unowned
 fi
done

-sv