[Solved] Migrating to x86_64

Zmann · 2015-03-22 22:04:03

Hi all,

finally I decided to migrate my good old desktop system from 686 to x86_64. I was very pleased to find this very helpful wiki entry. I decided to try method 1, booted from CD into the 64 bit system, made a backup of my root and /var partitions, mounted root partition to /mnt and var partition to /mnt/var and called the script listed on the page for method 1 to update the pacman database. Nevertheless the script failed, saying

error: failed retrieving file 'core.db' from archlinux.polymorf.fr : The requested URL returned error: 404
... same error for many servers ...
error: failed to update core (unexpected error)
... same for extra.db ...

So I probably missed something, I assume I didn't understand point 2 of method 1 correctly, it says:

Configure your network on the LiveCD, then pacman to use your new architecture repos

Network in the LiveSystem seemed to be okay, so maybe I was expected to tweak some settings in /mnt/etc/pacman.conf or in the pacman.conf of the LiveCD? Do I have to switch the setting of 'Architecture' to 'x86_64' in any of these files? The current value is auto (for both) and I assumed it is set from 'uname -m' as the manpage says, but who knows. I confess that I am a little confused about "which configuration files will the pacman call in the update script use".

Can anyone give a hint how to continue?

Cheers, Zmann

Last edited by Zmann (2015-03-25 17:16:51)

nomorewindows · 2015-03-22 22:31:27

You should just leave it to auto unless you have other problems.
It could just be the mirror is down or you aren't getting a dhcp address to connect to the internet with.

Last edited by nomorewindows (2015-03-22 22:32:22)

Trilby · 2015-03-22 22:33:56

The pacman config those instructions refer to is the one in the the live environment: that step is given before the target system is even mounted.

Can you ping the mirror? Have you tried another mirror?

nomorewindows · 2015-03-22 22:44:19

Did you chroot or just point to your installation with -r option? If you use the whole option --config -r --dbpath --cachedir --arch et al you can override the default pacman behavior. If you point to your existing cachedir you'll save some downloading. You won't really need --dbpath if you use -r.

Zmann · 2015-03-24 22:17:13

I tried once again and now everything worked like a charm, so I'm currently writing this from my shiny new 64 bit system. I have no idea, why my first try failed. There are some issues left: surprisingly some packets like ffmpeg are still 32 bit and refuse to get reinstalled, but I will post this separately to the pacman forum. All in all this is a really elegant solution to switch from 32 to 64 bits and I recommend it.

Thanks for your helpful hints, Zmann

jasonwryan · 2015-03-24 22:58:34

Please remember to mark your thread as [Solved] by editing your first post and prepending it to the title.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-03-22 22:04:03

[Solved] Migrating to x86_64

#2 2015-03-22 22:31:27

Re: [Solved] Migrating to x86_64

#3 2015-03-22 22:33:56

Re: [Solved] Migrating to x86_64

#4 2015-03-22 22:44:19

Re: [Solved] Migrating to x86_64

#5 2015-03-24 22:17:13

Re: [Solved] Migrating to x86_64

#6 2015-03-24 22:58:34

Re: [Solved] Migrating to x86_64

Board footer