I know it's been asked in the past, but I thought after all this time someone might have found a way to easily upgrade from slackware 32b to slackware 64b without a total reinstall. This install I want to upgrade has been carefully attended for many years, contains many old and irreplaceable games and libraries I don't want to lose. Yes backup backup backup. So any thoughts?

it will be a total reinstall

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I'd suggest that you first install Slackware64-14.2 alongside your 32-bit system (or in another machine), make it multilib, then install there the "old and irreplaceable games and libraries(you)I don't want to lose". After that you can take the time to find 64-bit version of the old stuff or equivalent software and possibly go back to "monolib" 64 bit, or stay multilib as you like.

Caveat: this assumes that you have 32-bit software installed on Slackware version 14.2, not on a previous Slackware version. If instead you are still using e.g. Slackware version 14.1 32-bit you need to first upgrade to Slackware 14.2 32-bit, then install Slackware 14.2 64 bit and make it multilib.

This is rather theoretical as I don't run a multilib system, so maybe wait for answers from better informed people than me.

Also, be aware that really old stuff maybe won't run on a newer system, regardless of its architecture.

I've done it before. What you want to do is make sure that you're completely up to date in 32-bit, and then from the installer you'll want to upgradepkg --reinstall --install-new all the 64-bit packages (system mounted on /mnt, ROOT=/mnt for upgradepkg... similar to step 3 of UPGRADE.TXT, but export ROOT=/mnt first, and add --reinstall to the bit of script). Adjust your bootloader/initrd so that you'll be booting a 64-bit kernel, reboot, and you _should_ be good to go. Add alienBOB's multilib if you expect to keep running any 32-bit stuff.

And yes, backup first.

Good luck!

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Thank you all for the response, I'm running -current right now but I'm presuming release 15.0 is pretty close. At that time I'll be at a release version and then I'll give it a go. If I may Patrick, when you say (system mounted on /mnt) I assume you mean a cdrom mounted there? You say from the installer, so actually run the installer from the disk? What I do now is keep an rsync clone of -current, which I probably will do for 15 when it's ready.

What you want to do is boot the 64-bit installer (but don't run setup). Then, mount your old 32-bit system on /mnt so that you'll be able to work with it there. Since you'll need the 64-bit packages to update your system, you'll want those somewhere on your old system where it's handy to get at them (unless you're booting a full installer such as a DVD or a USB stick made with usbimg2disk... in that case you could use the packages from there).

Hope that's a little less confusing.

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