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Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:09:57 -0800
From: "David O'Brien" <obrien@freebsd.org>
To: Baldur Gislason <baldur@foo.is>
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Subject: Re: 4GB RAM with an intel core 2 processor
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On Thu, Jan 24, 2008 at 11:58:57PM +0000, Baldur Gislason wrote:
> I wasn't aware that amd64 was the same 64 bit architecture as used by Intel.

You can think your processor vendor for intentionally trying to mislead
its customers.

> Are there any known backwards compatibility issues with running i386 linux
> binaries for example if I switch over to amd64?

No.

However, it sounds like you're using the binary nVidia driver.  And
nVidia only supports FreeBSD/i386, not FreeBSD/amd64.  (search the
mailing lists if you want to know why)

> Also, could I switch to amd64 by just changing make.conf and doing a
> buildworld and buildkernel or would I have to do a binary upgrade or
> maybe even a clean install?

A clean install really is better.  You could do an "upgrade" install to
leave your /etc alone.  And then reinstall any packages you have
installed.