[Solved] Moning an installation to another machine

Jens Clasen · 2024-10-14 18:53:52

Hey All!

I'm just looking for the right google keywords at the moment. Any help would be appreciated.

I just bought a new laptop and I need to transfer a given, working and well tuned arch linux intallation over to the new system. In the old days, I'd simply take an ethernet cable, connect both devices and boot both using an USB stick. Afterwards, I'd create the target file system using fdisk and then transfer the old systems data using tar and nc. Or maybe rsync. When done, I'd chroot, re-install grub and be done with it. Pretty straight forward and not too much of a hassle.

What I don't know is, if the approach is still the easiest nowadays. Essentially, that's what I've been doing since 2002. (Please disregard some in place distro changes.)

When googling, my approach still seems to be a valid one. I didn't find anything severely different. Okay: somebody used some backup device in between, but essentially, the way to go and the tooling seemed to be the same.

I did not manage to find any more modern approach using "my" google keywords. Is there any new and state of the art tooling available for something like this today? A lot of other systems started to distribute migration tools for such an endeavor. Is there anything like that for linux and I'm simply not seeing it, due to wrong search keywords? If I can, I'd like to learn something new, while doing the move.

Thanks for any thoughts on that!

Kind regards,
Jens

Last edited by Jens Clasen (2024-10-20 09:49:11)

Trilby · 2024-10-14 19:24:22

What's easiest is relative. If you have a proceedure that works and you're comfortable with it, it doesn't get much easier than that (assuming it's a safe / suitable approach which yours is). Personally using tar / nc strikes me as a bit odd - and I'd favor rsync, in small part for better speed, but in larger part for the ability to check / confirm and restart a transfer if there is any interuption.

Other than that there are some post-transfer steps. You'll almost certainly need to regenerate the initramfs on the new machine. Then if the hardware is different you might need to change things like graphics drivers, etc.

Jens Clasen · 2024-10-20 09:51:28

Thanks for your comments. Since I couldn't find any simpler solution, I did the move using rsync by now and the new system is up and running.

As for tar/nc: The only reason for that would be that I wouldn't need to look up the cli options. :-D I'm aware that rsync is more robust.

Arch Linux

#1 2024-10-14 18:53:52

[Solved] Moning an installation to another machine

#2 2024-10-14 19:24:22

Re: [Solved] Moning an installation to another machine

#3 2024-10-20 09:51:28

Re: [Solved] Moning an installation to another machine

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