i386 to x86_64 switch
 

I tried google and searching this forum so sorry if it's here and I just suck at finding it.. Anyway

I'm a newbie obviously I'm running i386 fedora 9 on a AMD64 6000+ processor.. I want to switch to x86_64 so I can read my 4 gigs of ram.. And also considering it should be better.. I'm having problems with looooooooots of stuff.. oh by the way my video card problem was fixed once I edited the phase on my monitor.. So I guess it was my monitors fault.. Anyway.

Is it possible to switch from fedora 9 i386 to fedora 9 x86_64? I'm downloading fedora 9 x86_64 right now anyway so if it isn't I can just reinstall it.. Is there a way to install off of the hard drive and not need to burn a DVD? I left it at my friends house ;-; ...I can go get it though.. But I'm kind of impatient..
Should I format too? Or just do a fresh install? I'm running 3 OS's right now windows XP pro, windows XP pro 64 bit and fedora 9.. it'd make sense to format so I don't have 4.. but I'll see what you guys have to say about this..

Ok. so if this made no sense (it'd make sense if you guys couldn't make sense out of it cause making sense is something I have a tough time doing).. these are my main questions:

1. Is it possible to switch (using yum hopefully) from i386 fedora 9 to x86_64 fedora 9
2. If it isn't , should I format my Linux partition?
3. Is it WORTH the switch? (I'm also bored and looking for something to do.. and this install has a bunch of problems anyway...)
4. Is it possible to do a fresh install without burning the DVD?

thanks for reading this mess sorry guys I'm sort of drunk.

1. I don't know that it would be that easy since you would have to install a new kernel and all new 64-bit versions of libraries and applications

2. Try to keep your home partition if possible; lots of your applications that you have configured store their settings there.

3. The only REAL reason(IMO) to switch is to get 4+GB of memory available. However, you may try looking for a 'pae' or 'bigmem' kernel version. Sometimes, they can give you access to your 4GB of memory.

4. I'm sure there is, but I don't know how! lol.

Good luck.

1. No.
2. Yes but you can do so while you are installing. If you want to preserve your home partition (if it is on a partition of its own, that is), select it during install but choose NOT to format it.
3. Depends on the type of application. Multimedia, databases, number crunching etc. would be among the first to benefit from 64 bit, other applications won't be any faster at all.
4. Yes. Place your media on the hard drive and get an iso editing tool (like acetoneiso) to extract the vmlinuz and initrd files. Place those in the boot directory of another installed distro (even XP should work) and put a reference to them in your GRUB that looks like a regular GRUB entry. Reboot and select the new entry.