[xubuntu-users] Upgrading from 32bit to 64bit

[Peter Flynn]

On 06/30/2017 07:52 PM, Istimsak Abdulbasir wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 5:28 PM, Peter Flynn <peter at silmaril.ie> wrote:
> 
[snip]
>> Or do I have to do a from-scratch installation (not a major
>> problem, as /home is on a separate partition, and most all the
>> important stuff is on SVN repos).
> 
> You would be better off reinstalling your system using a 64bit distro.

I did exactly that. As I keep a separate backup of additional
non-standard stuff, it worked just fine.

For the record: Recommended:

1. If you can, create a /home partition, or install a second drive
   and make it /home (or whatever structure you want for the place
   where you keep *your* stuff).

2. If you have non-standard stuff you have added, *always* keep it
   somewhere like /usr/local/src and back that up separately (eg
   to USB), or rsync it to some place else.

   I also keep things like the installation tar.gz files of the
   small amount of commercial software that I have bought in that
   directory too, so I can reinstall it from there if I need to.

3. I have a bunch of shared stuff that I use on lots of systems,
   mainly my Emacs add-ons and my DTD/Schema collection, both of
   which have standard locations in /usr/local, so they are in
   SVN repos on my server, so I can add them back to any newly-
   installed system without difficulty.

> There has been talk about a successful upgrade from a 32bit core to
> a 64bit one. Yet that procedure is not fail-proof and might require
> you to compile your own kernel.

I'll pass on that, thanks :-)

> You be better off backing up any critical files you have (docs,
> scripts, config files) and reinstalling a 64bit distro.

Works fine. Better, in fact, as the ltXML2 utilities were giving me
problems compiling them under the 32bit distro, but under 64bit they
compiled and installed without a glitch. Some C++ weirdness.

///Peter