Upgrading from 11.10 32-bit to 12.04 64-bit

[Tornikee]

Hi, I've never done upgrades between different bit versions of Ubuntu, so I'm wondering if there is going to be a way of upgrading from 11.10 32-bit to 12.04 64-bit (when it is released) without formatting partitions (=keeping my stuff)? Also, I'm using GNOME Shell 3.2, will I need to reinstall themes and extensions if I do so?

Thanks in advance.

[mikewhatever]

You can't upgrade from 32bit to 64bit. Sorry.

[Tornikee]

You can't upgrade from 32bit to 64bit. Sorry.
Thanks for the info.

[oldfred]

While you cannot upgrade, you will want to backup or have several things to make it easier. If you have a separate /home then all your settings and files be preserved as part to new install just reuse without reformatting the existing /home. You can export a list of all installed applications.

My backup assumes I will do a new clean install, so this is a list of things to backup for a new install.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/rsync
Oldfred's list of stuff to backup May 2011:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1748541

More detail on /etc files to backup - post #3:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1500559

Files to include or exclude from full system backup.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1903085

[Tornikee]

Thanks for replies.