[CentOS] upgrading 32-bit installation to 64-bit

Sun Mar 7 19:19:45 UTC 2010
Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com>

At Sun, 7 Mar 2010 13:41:57 -0500 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> Hi!
> 
> I've got a 32-bit Centos installed on an AMD Phenom II X2 processor and
> I'm interested ni making it 64 bit instead. But I'd sure like to avoid
> having to go back thru the whole installation again... in part because
> I've got sotware RAID set up and I'm assuming that I can't do a fresh
> install into it without having to re-configure the whole thing.

Doing a fresh 64 install on an existing 32-bit system with software RAID
does not mean you have to re-configure the RAID system. 

Are you using LVM?  Have you broken up your root, /boot, and /home (and
possibly /var/<mumble>) as separate file systems (except /boot) as LVM
logical volumes?  If so, it is easy.  I did this recently.  I created
fresh root, /usr, and /var filesystems (lvcreate ...), then installed
64-bit CentOS 5.4.  I retailed the old 32-bit CentOS 4.8 system tree and
copied the config files needed to bring the 64-install up to speed.. 

> 
> So, is it possible (and practical) to upgrade a 32 bit system to 64?

Not recomended to 'upgrade'.

> 
> Thanks!
> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- Get the Deepwoods Software FireFox Toolbar!
Deepwoods Software        -- Linux Installation and Administration
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Web Hosting, with CGI and Database
heller at deepsoft.com       -- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk