Revert from AMD64 to i386

[chavez243]

I would like to go from my current amd64 install back to i386 without blowing away the install. I haven't had much luck thus far. Any help greatly appreciated.

ps: sad thing about bsdforums, but it's nice to still have a place to drop in a ask a question.

[J65nko]

Looks difficult to me ;)

I would recommend to make a backup of your current setup and just install the i386 version.

Or use your wish to revert from amd64 to i386 as an excuse to get a second hard disk ;) That way you can keep the amd64 setup as backup

[chavez243]

LOL!

I've consider that exact thing, but I'm avoiding the hassle of downloading yet another ISO. Luckily there is nothing of importance to back-up, it's a fairly virgin install.

I thought I could just build and install a i386 kernel, cvsup src-all, rebuild world and then rebuilt all the ports... but then again, maybe not.

[FloridaBSD]

It all depends on the architecture that your processor is based upon!

[chavez243]

how so?

not sure I catch yer drift.

[phoenix]

You can't do it easily. In theory, one could build and install a 32-bit world, as you should be able to run a 32-bit userland on top of a 64-bit kernel. Then you could build and install a 32-bit kernel. Then rebuilt all your ports.

However, considering you have to rebuild the entire OS, as well as all the apps, anyway, you may as well just reinstall from the CD.

And the bootonly CD is only a handful of megs, not like it'd take a day to download. :)

[chavez243]

Oh, I'm not concerned about the time it takes to download the ISO, it's just that it seems that is all I have been doing lately. I have ISOs for DSL, SLAX, BSD 6.3 / 7.0amd, Debian 3, Debian 4, hell... I've lost track!

Oh well - gotta do what I gotta do.

;-)