Advice for "crossgrading" from 32 bit F11 to x64 ?

[Robin Laing]

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 at 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