Re: Plop in Debian install HDD into entirely new system

[Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org>]

Thomas Anderson wrote: 
> I was curious what would happen if I threw my server HDD, into an entirely
> new system:
> 
> different motherboard, different CPU (Intel instead of AMD), Ram, video
> card, everything.
> 
> I would like to upgrade my system, and ideal case, this would simply work. I
> think I have done
> 
> it in the past, but with less variables. I have never done it with
> EVERYTHING outside of the hard drive
> 
> being different.

This will usually mostly work. Things to think about:

- you'll need to install different microcode
- you'll need to install different video drivers
- you may need to adjust settings on virtual machines that you
  are running, if you have any and you set them to copy the host
  cpu
- disk names may change
- network interface names may change, and you may need different
  firmware for the NICs

All of these things can be fixed; in the cases of the drivers
and firmware, you can pre-install them before doing the
transfer.

-dsr-