Re: 6.x from i386 to amd64

On 2006-10-31, Bill Moran wrote:
In response to Greg Black <freebsd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
On 2006-10-31, Robert Blayzor wrote:

Is there a way to upgrade/move an already installed i386 installed 6.1
machine to amd64 without completely reinstalling? Is there a procedure
to do so?

Having just gone through the migration in the opposite
direction, I would ask why you want to do this?

The state of the software out there is disgracefully far from
being ready for 64-bit platforms -- after wasting weeks in a
vain attempt to get a workable development environment on my
amd64 setup, I've just completed a move to i386 (by a fresh
install).

I now have a machine that has almost every port I want working
and that still gives me considerable performance improvements
over the genuine Intel 32-bit boxes I have.

I won't be trying another amd64 setup for at least a couple more
years.

Are there open PRs on this? We've not had any problems. Although
our amd64 deployment is still young, we have several machines humming
away happily. Where did you have problems, specifically?

I didn't look for PRs and didn't submit any. I found that a
very large number of ports that mattered to me were marked i386
only. You could get a count by searching the Makefiles in ports
for:

ONLY_FOR_ARCHS= i386

There are several hundred of them. Since the non-functionality
of these ports on amd64 was already known, there seemed little
point in adding to the noise by sending a PR.

I did write a bit about this as part of a general rant on the
woeful state of current software here:

http://www.gbch.net/gjb/blog/software/discuss/software-quality.html

Greg
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