I have three servers, two are 32-bit one is 64 bit. All have Slackware 13.0 (32-bit) installed -- I did 32-bit because (1) that's my Slackware subscription and (2) I have stuff that's 32-bit only and didn't want to mess with conversions on the 64-bit platform.
Now, I actually have a need to go to 64-bit and I'm waiting for the Slackware 64-bit DVD to come (yup, buy it, help out the cause). I long ago adopted a partitioning layout that would make it easy to either install or update a new Slackware release -- basically, I do a clean install but I don't format some partitions. This is the partition map:
Code:
df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 9.2G 676M 8.1G 8% /
/dev/sda5 19G 5.4G 13G 31% /usr
/dev/sda6 9.2G 1.7G 7.1G 20% /usr/local
/dev/sda7 9.2G 3.7G 5.1G 43% /home
/dev/sda8 19G 6.0G 12G 35% /opt
/dev/sda9 9.2G 377M 8.4G 5% /var
/dev/sda10 19G 430M 17G 3% /var/lib/mysql
/dev/sda11 19G 696M 17G 4% /spare00
/dev/sda12 19G 1.5G 16G 9% /spare01
/dev/sda13 19G 3.7G 14G 21% /spare02
/dev/sda14 9.2G 826M 7.9G 10% /spare03
/dev/sda15 62G 8.6G 51G 15% /var/lib/virtual
tmpfs 1.7G 0 1.7G 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 9.8G 8.7G 1.1G 89% /fat-c
During install, I format
root,
usr and
var and do not format the others (which leaves all their content in place). I don't format
/opt any more because there is no system stuff installed there since KDE went somewhere else. Of course any configuration files in
/etc and other places are backed-up on CDs or DVDs, but, otherwise, that's how I do a "clean install" of every new release instead of fooling around with the update...
...except for Slackware 13.0, that is. I had been using Reiser and decided to go with the program and use the default
ext4 file system so everything had to be off to back up media then reinstalled after the installation. No big deal, worked fine and all is well with the world.
I'm planning to do the 64-installation as above (and, you know, rebuild everything local that will break in a 64-bit environment).
I'm wondering if this is going to work; e.g., I assume (shame on me) that the
ext4 file system is compatible, that existing 32-bit application programs will, hopefully, work until I rebuild them 64-bit, that there's a chance that I'll be able to update VirturalBox to 64-bit (and that the damned Microsoft stuff has a chance of actually working)?
Any pitfalls or if-you-do-that-your-toes-will-turn-green-and-fall-off?
