Linux system transfer question

Post #351,537 by jake123 12/1/11 10:01:11 AM Reply	Linux system transfer question I have an old (~10 years) Dell that I use for recording. I've gotten a new (320GB) HD for it, and I want to put it in and transfer the old system over to it. I want to transfer the old system because I've got a custom-compiled version of FFADO that works with my recording hardware. I'd consider putting it on a new system, but nobody seems to put firewire on laptops anymore (goddam tools). I'm concerned about grub. Since it uses the UIDs for the partitions, I'm feeling fairly certain that they won't match when I get the old partitions on the new drive. Any input as to the best way to deal with that would be appreciated! I've got a fairly hard deadline on this; I'm playing with a friend of mine from the maritimes on Saturday and want to record the gig. Her name's Jenny Macdonald (http://jennymacdonald.com); go check her out if you like. And yeah... I need the new hard drive because I don't want to run out of disk space halfway through the gig ;)
Post #351,540 by drook 12/1/11 10:17:50 AM Reply	Possible different solution Just get an external hard drive? If all you need is space, that might be the better solution anyway. -- Drew
Post #351,542 by jake123 12/1/11 10:32:21 AM Reply	Only has USB 1.1 and I don't want to put one on the firewire controller (pcmcia version) that I've got the actual sound interface on.
Post #351,545 by drook 12/1/11 11:28:30 AM Reply	I thought firewire could handle that bandwidth? -- Drew
Post #351,546 by jake123 12/1/11 11:34:47 AM Reply	Re: I thought firewire could handle that bandwidth? That may be, but the CPU pops up to about 80% while I'm recording... don't want to stress it any further than I already am.
Post #351,550 by drook 12/1/11 12:17:05 PM Reply	Then get a new PC ... oh -- Drew
Post #351,552 by folkert 12/1/11 1:13:55 PM Reply	What do you have installed? Anything with grub2 (v1.99-X) should be able to cope with it. Especially, if you boot into a "rescue mode" of your favorite install distro CD... then just edit the UUID list. Print out/save the original info... as of right now, if you have a UUID mounting system, the UUIDs are in fstab and you can just put it in /root/fstab... Edit the UUIDs in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg and you should be good to go, as long as the boot sector is installed. Also, tiptoe in /etc/grub.d/ and in /etc/default/grub you might be surprised. IF and only IF, you have a Linux that still can/does use "hd0,0" or even device names... then you don't have to worry Just edit... voila. One other thing you can do... Install the same version of linux on the new disk... then transfer everything over except for /boot/* and /lib/modules/* Remember, you will always have the OLD disk to fall back to, so only thing lost is your time (yes I know, it sucks), so not much to lose.
Post #351,554 by jake123 12/1/11 1:18:49 PM Reply	Pre-unity ubuntu Yeah, that's the basic outline of my plan in a nutshell, just hoping to find out any gotchas I might run into. Any insights into possibly using dump for this? That was recommended by a colleague... use dump over SSH to put it onto another machine, and then the same thing back onto the new hd.
Post #351,556 by folkert 12/1/11 1:50:41 PM Reply	I've stayed away from "dump" for many years. I never had a "nonrecoverable" from it, but I've had enough bad experience, as I'd rather not chance anything anymore. Personally, I'd make a loopback writeable filesystem on another machine and and rsync everything from the laptop to the loopback filesystem. Then when you've installed stuff grabs the stuff you need from the loopback filesystem. Or transfer the loopback filesystem to the new drive and mount it there and go and grab things as you need it. There are indeed so many ways you can proceed, its not even funny. Easiest plan would be to have the drives both spinning on the same machine and copy from there. But, anyway.
Post #351,558 by jake123 12/1/11 4:20:31 PM Reply	Cool, thanks for the heads up.

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