Upgrading and switching architectures

[Gabriel Dragffy]

Lorenzo Taylor wrote:
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> I would like to upgrade from Edgy to Feisty when the final version is
> released.  I know I can use apt to do this.  Now here's the tricky
> part.  While upgrading I want to switch from i386 to amd64.  Can I
> somehow use apt to do this as well or will I need to install from the
> live CD?
> 
> Thanks for any help,
> Lorenzo
> - -- 
> I've always found anomalies to be very relaxing. It's a curse.
> - --Jadzia Dax: Star Trek Deep Space Nine (The Assignment)
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OOoohh I think an upgrade itself is hit and miss, let alone jumping 
ship!! It would be much quicker for you to just reinstall. If you have 
/home on a seperate partition then it's a piece of cake.

Think about it: a dist-upgrade will normally require you download 500MB+ 
of packages and will take several hours to download and install and it 
has a high chance of failure - and all might be lost.
If you have an alternate CD you can tell your system to upgrade from the 
CD, and use that same CD over and over.
Even better is just to reboot with the CD, reinstall, and less than 
45mins (depending on hw) have brand new system, without any glitches.

In my /home I have a script which when I run will install all my 
favourite software (a bit like my own automatix!). Before doing that 
make sure you copy and special config files that you changed, e.g. for 
servers like samba. Then you'll just need to merge the changes back.