[lug] MB Replacement

[David L. Anselmi]

Nate Duehr wrote:
> Gary.Hodges at noaa.gov wrote:
> 
>> Over the weekend the motherboard in my main computer died.  I've just
>> ordered a replacement, though not the same model.  Will I have to do a
>> full install again (Kubuntu 5.10), or will I be able to get things going
>> without reinstalling?

ECS MB maybe?  Though I thought they'd all died a while back.

Obviously you should back the disk(s) up first.  If you have a separate 
system disk it may be ok to experiment with it before putting data disks 
on line.

Even if you reinstall, after doing the bare minimum you can read the 
installed packages off the old disk and apply that to the new. 
Something like:

dpkg --get-selections --admindir=<old /var/lib/dpkg> | grep install

and you can be pretty sure you've reinstalled everything.

> You're basically in a raw-metal disaster recovery scenario, and 
> apparently an untested one.  ;-)

Well, I think of bare-metal as blank disk more than new MB.

> First advice:  JuPut the old disk in another Linux machine, back it up 
> thoroughly, and then give it a whirl.
> 
> Best case: Disk geometry acts the same to the bootloader, anything that 
> changed is autodetected, dthe correct modules are loaded, and all is well.

This has been my experience the few times I've moved a disk to a new MB 
(Windows is a different story but maybe I just needed to learn about h/w 
profiles).

> Medium (and probably most dangerous and annoying from a "production" 
> standpoint) case: The box boots and everything looks great for a few 
> weeks until you notice that all of your data is being corrupted by an 
> unsupported chipset on the new motherboard.  (BACKUPS!!!)

I don't see this as very likely.  But you can do yourself a favor and 
get a new MB that is similar to the old one.  In order of preference:

- same model
- same chipset
- same type & number of CPUs
- same built in devices (disk controllers, sound, NIC, etc.)

Obviously switching from AMD (or Sparc!) to Intel may give you problems 
with the kernel.  Different chipsets is the only thing that might cause 
hidden corruption that Nate mentions (AFAIK, unless Nate can give more 
details).  And this isn't a good time to switch to SATA or a fancy new 
video card.

Give it a shot.  I think you'll be good with the exception of NIC 
drivers (if you don't have udev or something figuring that out for you) 
that you have to re-alias yourself.  And worst case, all the bits are 
still there as long as you don't reformat prematurely so you can get 
them easily with another Linux box.

Dave