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

[Linuxguy123]

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.