Re: Memory defined at boot time incorrect

On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Greg Troxel wrote:

> Andy Ruhl <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> I have a new-ish motherboard with an amd64 capable CPU, however I'm
>> using i386 on it because this system has existed since long before
>> amd64 was a thing.
>
> Not that you asked how to do this, but changing a system from i386 to
> amd64 in place is doable, assuming you have physical console access.  I
> did this on one system without too much trouble, basically:
>
> - making sure I had a bootable amd64 CD that worked on the machine
>
> - installing an amd64 kernel and booting it instead

Make sure you also install matching kernel modules, just in case!

 	/stand/{amd64,amd64-xen}/${VERSION}/modules/

> - installing amd64 userland and merging /etc (using INSTALL-NetBSD from
>   pkgsrc/sysutils/etcmanage), and then diffing the unpacked etc sets
>   against /etc.  This is good to do anyway (not saying make them match
>   - just understand every difference)
>
> - running MAKEDEV (the new one after merging etc set contents!) in /dev
>   as some device numbers have changed).  This might have required using
>   the rescue CD; I don't remember
>
> - marking all packages for rebuild: "pkg_admin set rebuild=YES \*"
>
> - pkg_rolling-replace
>
> - clean out i386 libs from /usr/lib and /lib, and also look for things
>   in {,/usr}/{,s}bin that did not get an updated ctime from unpacking
>   userland and pruning those

But don't remove /lib/i388 or /usr/lib/i386 just in case you still have
a i386 binary that needs to run in compat mode (which is also why you
need to update modules).

> I know that sounds like a lot, but I find it easier and more reliable
> than reinstalling and trying to move config.

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