changing mainboard, keeping linux

On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:27:42 +0200, rembremading

It is possible. You have to evaluate the devices on both boards to see how the new board compares with the old. If the two boards are identical, then you can swap boards with no other considerations. If they are different in any way, then more consideration is required. There are two critical areas: the boot disc controller and the graphics controller.

Disk Controller Question: Is a kernel module required to boot? If the two boards use different controller boards and-or chipsets for the disk controller, then you may need to make an initrd to boot, depending on whether the new board's controller is supported directly by your kernel. Making an initrd is somewhat distribution dependant. I don't run Suse.

Question: Will the boot device use the same device name on the new system? If not, you will need to edit the fileetc-fstab to reflect the change. Also, modify the bootloader's menu to specify the correct root device. Graphics Controller Because you are using Suse, you may be booting straight into X. You may want to boot to text mode until you can reconfigure X. Simply, append a runlevel to the bootloader; try runlevel 3 until your graphics modes are known working. For grub, edit the "kernel line" within the grub stanza being booted by appending a digit for the runlevel. Here is an example:

kernelboot-vmlinuz roroot=-dev-hda1 3

The other main consideration is the graphics controller.

Other devices may need reconfiguration, too. But they can be handled separately when your new board is up and running with the old disk. (I guess, that is what you are doing.) If you are migrating to a new disk, too, then you may be ahead to reinstall from scratch. Then when your new system is up an running, pull some of your old files over from your old system.

And, there is yet one more option. You want to migrate your existing setup exactly as it is now to a new system including a new disk. I think you would use the techniques I presented above in combination with the method presented in this mini-howto:

It is also possible to clone systems over the network. This shows an example of using a rescue disc and nc:

The above post is a little old, but the technique still applies. A rescue CD with networking or a live CD which includes the nc would be a good method to start booting the new system (perhaps Slax.)

Well, as you can see cloning is a big topic and I have barely scratched the surface. Perhaps, one of these methods will be suitable to meet your needs.

-- Douglas Mayne