Question about 32bit to 64bit upgrade

[Robtygart]

I installed 13.10 and everything setup how I like it, well I downloaded the 32bit instead of the 64, So I downloaded the 64bit and installed it over what I just did, I installed in manually because I was installing it to a partition, I did not choose to "Format" I just installed. when I logged in, to my surprise my background and my widgets were still up,

dpkg --list

shows that I am using 64bit packages.

Why did it keep my files? Is it because I did not format? And could I have just upgraded my system that way?

[claydoh]

Could be that you have both the 32bit and 64 bit system bits installed together, or that the important ones were overwritten by the 64 bit.

Now note that 32bit/64bit is for binary executables and libraries, none of your data has anything to do with the number of bits

You also might have been lucky, especially with a shiny fresh install. There is no way to properly/safely "upgrade" from 32 to 64 bits.

[Robtygart]

Could be that you have both the 32bit and 64 bit system bits installed together, or that the important ones were overwritten by the 64 bit.

Anyway I can tell? And does it matter?

[claydoh]

You could look at muon and filter by installed status and then by architecture, however the current apt database likely does not know about what was installed previously, and no unless you find a problem, it doesn't matter

[Robtygart]

So if I ran

dpkg --list | less

That should tell me the same thing right?

[oshunluvr]

Your background and widgets are configured in your home. You didn't over-right your home. Besides, since 13.04 we're on a multi-arch system so the widgets might be the same for both builds.

[Robtygart]

Ok thats why! I wasn't expecting to have all my files, I wonder if I will be able to do that again for the next build.

Thanks for the info.

[oshunluvr]

By "do that again" I assume you mean not wipe your home clean, yes you should be able to. Ages ago, I wouldn't have recommended it as newer versions of some programs didn't like older configs. I don't think that's much of an issue any longer. I think the worst case would be some widget not being available on the newer version which would only leave you with a useless file in your home, not cause any problems.