Xeon (nocona) upgrade from x86 to x86_64?

nevin · n00b Joined: 29 May 2003 Posts: 4

Hello,

This is my first time installing Gentoo onto a 64-bit CPU. The machine contains dual Xeon (nocona) however I was using the x86 livecd to boot and install. So what I have is a 32-bit system installed and running. It would be good if I can "upgrade" the system to 64-bit without using the livecd again (b'cos the server does not have CD-ROM once put onto the rack, and it's remote).

I've searched the forum and tried to cross compile a 64-bit kernel successfully (and able to boot!). So now I have a 64-bit kernal with everything else 32-bit. The question is, what's the next step?

1) Should I bootstrap the system? (I tried but end up something wrong when executing the bootstrap.sh)
2) Should I make a directory, chroot to it and pretend I'm install a fresh machine. Then once the system installation completed I copy all the file back to the root?
3) Do a bootstrap using the cross compiler? (This is something I do not know how to do, never done any cross-compiling)

Can anyone give me some instructions/advises on this?

fangorn · Veteran Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 1886

The differences in baselayout/stage are quite big. AFAIK there is not a chance getting a working system by just compiling everything 64bit. You wont have multilib, ...

You can copy your hand edited configuration files in /etc and your /home. But I dont think you can avoid a reinstall.

drwook · Veteran Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 1324 Location: London

Your only safe bet is to unpack a fresh x86_64 tarball into a new partition, chroot and do it from there. & that might well not work unless you can get hold of a 64 bit chroot binary or cross compile one.

Don't even think of 'upgrading' the x86 system on the fly. It'll get very, very messy...

Actually, you might be best off unpacking a amd64 stage 3 to a new partition, then booting to that as you've already got a working x86_64 kernel, to avoid the chroot messiness. If you can afford some downtime that is.

rpodgorny · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:26 pm Post subject: Any news?

...so, some time has passed. Isn't there now a simple way of moving live x86 system to amd64 (without reinstall)? Thanks for any reply...

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

drwook · Veteran Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 1324 Location: London

If it helps any there's also no easy way to move a hard drive with an x86 install into a ppc64, or a system from a G3 mac to a sparc...

Unfortunately when you ask for advice, you sometimes get an answer you don't want to hear. That doesn't mean there's a problem with the advice

You're moving between architectures, it's about the biggest change possible...

rpodgorny · Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2006 2:09 pm Post subject:

Yeah, thanks for reply. I really didn't want to hear this :-) I just thought amd64 was meant to be a x86 extension, so it's backward compatible, just like adding mmx or sse instruction set...

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

drwook · Veteran Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 1324 Location: London

Well quite, it'll happily run your x86 install so that's backward compatibility

rpodgorny · Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:54 am Post subject:

Well, maybe I'm dumb but I still don't get it, then.

Why can't I boot my old x86 system on new x86_64 cpu (I did it already), build a 64bit cross-compiler, then emerge world with that new compiler and finally reboot to fully 64bit environment?

loftwyr · Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 1:44 pm Post subject:

Because your system has 32 bit libraries. At some point you'l need to link to 64bit libraries before they've been compiled and your system suddenly falls down and will will need a re-install.

currently your libraries are in lib32 and not lib64 and simply moving them will break everything.

Saves time to just re-install.
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rpodgorny · Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2006 7:23 pm Post subject:

OK, so I've chosen the reinstall way but it sux :-( Still have to wait for all my favourite apps to compile :-(

lxnay · Retired Dev Joined: 09 Apr 2004 Posts: 661 Location: Italy

One year ago, I've recompiled RR4 (32bit) to RR64 (64bit).
Yes it's possible but it's very hard.
You need a working 64bit Gentoo and the target system mounted somewhere.
Then, from the working 64bit gentoo you can do something like:

ROOT=/path/to/target/system emerge -e system

...and that's only the beginning, then you have to compile step by step every package in the correct order.
In fact, before doing the step above, chroot into the target system (that needs to be mounted...) and save the output of "emerge -ep world" to a file.

RR64 Linux was born in this way

And now it works great.
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