David: sorry for the duplicate, I meant to send this to misc@ the first time.
On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 17:49, David Vasek <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, 21 Sep 2009, Nick Holland wrote: > >> David Vasek wrote: > >>>> From http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq12.html#amd64better : >>> >>> 12.3.3 - Is it always better to run OpenBSD/amd64 on processors that >>> support it? >>> >>> Not always. >>> >>> There are a number of reasons one may desire to use OpenBSD/i386 over >>> OpenBSD/amd64, even on hardware that supports amd64 code: >>> [...] >>> * Need for ability to move disks to another machine that isn't amd64 >>> capable >>> [...] >>> >>> Do I understand it right that disks (FFS, disklabel?) from OpenBSD/i386 >>> cannot be accessed on OpenBSD/amd64 or vice versa? >> >> ACCESSED, yes, you can access data on your amd64 disks on an i386 system. >> >> That sentence was intended to refer to repair. If your amd64 system craps >> out and you need to pull the disks out and put it in another machine and >> have it Just Work (or work with minimal effort), you need to have another >> amd64-compatible processor. That wasn't referring to a file system issue, >> but rather a rapid repair issue. > > I see, it refers to something else. It's clear now. May I suggest a slight > modification to that sentence in the FAQ then? > > * Need for ability to move disks with already installed > operating system to another machine that isn't amd64 capable > Having an OS installed doesn't mean you're going to boot from it. I'd rather: * Need for ability to boot disks on other machines that aren't amd64 capable. > >> Best way I know of to back up a lot of odd machines is to one store is >> running your favorite backup application so it dumps its data over ssh link >> to the one machine (which you have a spare of for repair purposes) which has >> the backup media attached to it. > > I agree, this is approximately what I am doing, but sometimes a directly > connected USB-attached disk comes handy. > >> however, if "Different architectures" means amd64 and i386, no issues at >> all. > > Yes, i386 and amd64 currently, but I would like to stay compatible with > sparc64 too. However, sparc64 is big-endian so I am out of luck anyway. And > "foreign" filesystems (ext2fs) are so slow on OpenBSD. > If it's for backup purposes only, speed MAY not affect you so badly. Is it weekly backups of one or two gigs? or a lot more frequent backups/a lot moremore data. > Thanks, Nick. > > Regards, > David
