Upgrade 32 bits programs to 64 bits on opensuse 11.2
 

Hello people,

I'm quite new to linux and I recently (and courageously) upgraded the computer of my work from opensuse 11.0 32bits to opensuse 11.2 64bits.

Well, everything would be quite fine except that I still have some softwares 32 bits that have the 64 bits version available. I know that because, using YaST, I can see by the Installed software section that there are 'choices' of versions for some programs; these versions are 'i586' and 'x86_64', and many of them have the i586 version installed.

So, I wonder if there is some type of auto upgrade all programs which are i586 and have the matching x86_64 avaliable...

Does anyone know how to do it?

Thank you very much!

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

A lot of application will never move to 32 bit. What's your reasoning to desire the move from 32-bit to 64-bit?

Most modern 64-bit systems are or will have multi-lib capability.

:hattip:

Are you just assuming that is a bad thing (it often isn't) or do you have a more informed reason for wanting 64 bit versions for everything that has a 64 bit version?

I don't know enough about opensuse or its upgrade process to even make a guess how you ended up with 32 bit versions of programs that have 64 bit versions. I would have expected it to be more like Centos, which has only given me 32 bit versions when I specifically force them or when there is no 64 bit version.

Some programs run a little faster in the 32 bit version than the 64 bit version. Most programs are a little smaller (on disk and in ram) in the 32 bit version. Someone could do a bunch of testing and decide that a significant set of programs are better in 32 bit even under a 64 bit kernel (provided the system has enough disk and ram that the duplication of .so files isn't significant).

I doubt that anyone went to the trouble of deciding which applications are better in 32 bit and tuning the defaults in opensuse for that. But I'm not certain that hasn't been done.

The OP specifically asked about programs that are available in both architectures.

But that is still the important question.

Just out of curiosity.. When you say you upgraded the OS from 32bit to 64bit. Did you do it without reinstalling or did you do a true upgrade? If you did an upgrade without reinstall could you please point me to some documentation to to do this? Ive searched a while back and ran across a few pages but it all seemed very risky.


thanks

Speed. I mean, the computer of my work has 4 GB RAM, and I heard that with that or more amount of memory, there is some good difference of speed between 32-bit and 64-bit OS. In fact, I proved myself after the upgrade; my simulations from the research are running considerably faster right now.

I did a tru upgrade. It really is a little risky doing just upgrade, but at least for me it was worth the risks. Maybe you could inform with someone else if s/he had a successful upgrade, cause mine has this little issue reported in this post - not all programs got an upgrade from 32 to 64 bit version.

And I experience something else: I have "poll_schedule_timeout" in almot every process running in my opensuse. I don't know what it is, but from time to time the computer lags some programs - like when you start some application from command line or interface button, it may take some while to start, and suddenly all the programs you wanted to start just appear in the screen at once. I seems an unresolved bug, and apparently the distro is not the issue, since I'm using opensuse.

Thanks all of you!

So I followed this guys page but got kernel panics when I rebooted

http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/123800


I tried all 3 of the grub options during the upgrade. Leave GRub alone, update GRub or create new GRub. All three failed with kernel panic upon reboot. It did add the new kernel at the boot splash screen and I tried both the new kernel as well as the old one and got the kernel panic each way.


When you did you upgrade how did you handle GRub?

I think I had chosen "keep grub", but then it said it had to do an upgrade, and than it took me to some screen where I could choose what options would there be in grub screen. But I chose the default configuration, and the installation moved on.

Hope it helps!