# Upgrade From 32bit to 64bit



## BillFinkNC (Feb 16, 2013)

I'm running 8.1 Release Generic i386 - seems one of my applications may not be handling mail files larger than 2GB's. 

I think I may already know the answer to this question, but thought I'd give it a shot.

Is there an easy solution to my being able to upgrade my 32bit box to a 64bit box? Or am I in for one of those long-weekenders?

The "new" box hardware-spec-wise is more than sufficient.

Thanks ahead of time for your input.


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## xibo (Feb 16, 2013)

I think off_t is a 64-bit integer on 32-bit platforms, therefore I don't see why large files would cause trouble to a 32-bit FreeBSD system.

That said, moving to 64-bit FreeBSD _should_ be easy (backup, overwrite all userspace, recompile all ports), but will not necessarily solve your problem.


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## wblock@ (Feb 16, 2013)

Back up, extract a 64-bit base.txz over /, restore config files that have been overwritten.  Actually, I did it by copying 64-bit binaries from another system.  Should have kept notes, it does come up fairly often.  From memory, copy all the standard command directories, all the library directories, and /boot.  Once it boots, install source, adjust kernel config, and do a full buildworld/kernel/installworld to make sure nothing was missed.  Then rebuild all ports.


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## youngunix (Feb 23, 2013)

Here is a complete-guide if you are still interested.


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## BillFinkNC (Feb 25, 2013)

*Awesome!*

Thank you!


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