On Fri, Dec 05, 2025 at 09:22:16AM -0500, Kenneth Gober wrote: > On Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 1:56???PM <[email protected]> wrote: > > > If I can successfully boot from media with a live amd64 system, > > then does that prove I can install amd64? > > > > The media that I boot from might be: > > 1. A usb flash drive with: > > a. A live system > > b. An installXX.img > > 2. cdXX.iso > > 3. bsd.rd, booted from 'boot hd0a:/bsd.rd' on i386 install. > > That is, I am booting the bsd.rd for amd64, not the one for i386. > > > > Up though OpenBSD 7.3 it was common to be able to boot the amd64 bsd.rd > from an i386 USB drive (i.e. you could install i386 on a USB drive, then > copy > the amd64 install files onto it and it would work). > > For OpenBSD 7.4 through 7.7 at least, this has not worked. I assume the > i386 boot program is different from the amd64 boot program, and the amd64 > kernels now expect something special that only the amd64 boot provides. > In this sense, the reverse is untrue: if you cannot boot an amd64 bsd.rd, > that does not necessarily mean you can't install it, just that booting that > particular way doesn't work. > > So, I recommend in general that you make a fully amd64 installer USB drive. > You could try putting i386 bsd.rd's on it but in my testing that works even > less > well than putting amd64 bsd.rd on an i386 USB drive. I just carry two > OpenBSD > USB drives in my pocket now, one for i386 and one for amd64. They are tiny. > > Also, EFI versus MBR can influence things and it seems like EFI systems > prefer for you to use amd64 (e.g. a ThinkPad T480 will boot the amd64 bsd.rd > from an amd64 USB key, but it won't boot the i386 bsd.rd from that same USB > key and it won't boot anything from an i386 USB key). So really having the > two > separately is best. > > -ken
Thank you for your explanation. I thought that the situation might be a bit complicated, but not as complex as you have described. Your description of possible issues should guide me through my upgrades (transgrades?) from i386 to amd64.
