Possible to change a 32bit system to 64 bits?

bastibasti · Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 581

Hi,

I have a 32bit system with no physical access. I now need a 64 bit system to run both gpus. (vmalloc issue) - can I somehow bootstrap the running system (and kernel) into 64 bits?

chiefbag · Guru Joined: 01 Oct 2010 Posts: 542 Location: The Kingdom

32 Bit chroot would be an option if you have a partition you can install some 64 bit utils.
Not sure that would even be of any use considering that your core issue relates to the fact that you are running a 32 bit with what ever it's used for.

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:AMD64/32-bit_Chroot_Guide

EDIT And with no way of booting a live ISO I'd say you have no hope.

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

Fixing the kernel is really easy - just check the first option that comes up in `make nconfig` and recompile.

Upgrading userspace to 64-bit is going to be a problem. You might be able to do a chroot install but swapping the main system for it will be difficult. The last time I changed ABIs I used btrfs subvolumes to swap out the "rootfs".

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

Does the system support IPMI and do you have access to it that way?

Do you need an upgrade or can it be a wipe/reinstall?

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

Wait. You're saying the hardware is 32 bits?

I don't think this is possible without virtualization, and AFAIK all the mainstream virtualization software does not allow it either.

KVM does not support this, but VMware does.

VirtualBox: http://askubuntu.com/questions/180761/can-i-use-virtualbox-with-a-64-bit-image-in-a-32-bit-host