::HI ALL::

I'm trying to do a migration from an X86(32 bit) Ubuntu to a 64 bit version for reasons involving lack of support for my 8GB of RAM. I've put so much time and effort into customizing and "prettying" up my distro. Which I'm sure many of you understand the gravity of having to lose everything you so diligently Googled and referenced to make happen.

So my question is, what is the best backup software to use to maintain as much of my current system as possible when I switch to the 64 bit version. Keep in mind that this switch also involves moving to a different HDD in my box, so there won't be any way to "update" patch to make it a 64 bit OS.

THANKS!

Copy and restore these directories:

/home
/root
/etc

You may want to check if there is anything else you want to salvage in /opt, /usr/local and /boot/grub.

The /etc directory had better be discarded if you are moving to a different distro. I mean, the /etc directory in a Slackware distro will not bode well with a Red Hat distro.

If you're using any Debian-based distro, like Ubuntu, which you are, then you may want to take this additional step:

$ sudo dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall > packagelist.txt

That will create a list of all the packages you have installed in the packagelist.txt file. Then copy that file over to the new system, and you can use it like this:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
$ sudo dpkg --set-selections < packagelist.txt

All your old programs will be restored. It just may take a while, because everything will be downloaded and installed again. You might as well leave and take a walk in the park while the computer is doing it.

I was more concerned with a switch to 64 bit Ubuntu 10.10. The same OS just 64 bit. Will all of that take care of my settings and do a complete reinstall of all of my programs just as they are now?

Yes.

Thank you sir. I will actually keep this thread open until I get around to the restore...hopefully tonight or tomorrow. Any other suggestions are very much appreciated, THANKS!

wait wait please don't do that yet.
please
take a look into PAE.
the generic pae kernel. it's supposed to find and use all your ram.

EDIT: there you go.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks!
I'm actually at school right now but I'll take a look into it..actually there's a Fedora Distro on some of the school's comps. Could I try it out with that first I wonder?

if your school accidentally put a 32 bit version of linux on a comp with more than 3gb ram then yes you can try it.
but you also have to search a guide for the fedora PAE, since i m not a fedora user. nor do i like rpm based distros...

Aye, im actually not to familiar with Fedora anyways so ill go ahead and give it a shot when i get home. Thanks mate

If you're running mail, web or mysql servers it might also be useful to keep /var in addition to lucmove's good advice above.

1 members found this post helpful.

I went ahead and looked into PAE and thought other wise about it due to some constraint with program overhead. It seems to me that PAE only makes a "virtual" 64 bits out of 36 bits. The way I understand is that it's a little more unstable when working with a true 64 bit CPU (I think I forgot to mention that I am running on an AMD cpu, sorry). I decided to go ahead and use the 64 bit version of Ubuntu which is running very nicely so far. It turns out that all I really needed was Lucmove's great advice about the packagelist and Gilead's idea to move /var. I am currently running a WoW server and I was thinking I might have to get rid of the db but that made it possible to keep the files. All I have to do now is recompile the db with a 64 bit SQL.

So thank you all for the great advice, everything seems to be working smoothly.

THANKS MATES!