32bit to 64bit "update" (was: Re: Plan for tomorrows (20070531) FESCO meeting)

[Bill Rugolsky Jr.]

On Wed, May 30, 2007 at 09:40:03PM +0200, Matthias Saou wrote:
> Doing it with yum or even rpm seems unfortunately pretty much
> impossible, since x86_64 stuff won't install/run when still running an
> x86, so scriplets would fail miserably. Too bad, since forcing a
> minimal set of 64bit packages on the machine and rebooting it to
> continue the procedure could have been nice.
 
It is possible to run an x86 userland with a x86_64 kernel (modulo
random bugs in 32-bit compatibility of ioctls, etc.); several LiveCDs
offer that option.  I don't know whether the Fedora mkinitrd will get
things right though; the initramfs might need to be constructed by hand,
or copied from a similar machine.  Also, there might be problems in
the Fedora rc.sysinit.

In any case,

	cd /  && rpm2cpio kernel-*.x86_64.rpm | cpio -idum
	/sbin/new-kernel-pkg ...

might do the trick.  Then one can reboot into the 64-bit kernel.

It makes sense to sort out any issues in QEMU before trying it on real
(and remote!) hardware. :-)

Regards,

	Bill Rugolsky