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#1 2009-04-21 10:05:58

SubGothius
Member
Registered: 2009-04-07
Posts: 13

Install on HD for transplant into another machine?

Hey there, I've got an old lappy kicking around with a dead optical drive and can't boot from USB, so I was wondering about the feasibility of installing Arch from CD to hard drive on another machine, so I could then transplant that HD into the old lappy?

I reckon it should work in theory, but (see my .sig and) is there anything I should be aware of or attend to, in order to make the HD+OS transplant go smoothly?

Last edited by SubGothius (2009-04-21 10:14:05)


Best regards,
-Tye
"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is." (-Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut)

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#2 2009-04-26 05:27:13

SubGothius
Member
Registered: 2009-04-07
Posts: 13

Re: Install on HD for transplant into another machine?

Bump? Does anyone know how "portable" an Arch base install might be?


Best regards,
-Tye
"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is." (-Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut)

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#3 2009-04-26 05:31:24

.:B:.
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Registered: 2006-11-26
Posts: 5,819
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Re: Install on HD for transplant into another machine?

It's a pretty basic question - so searching the forum would reveal that to you wink.

Arch is as portable as can be. Initcpio image needs regeneration and you'll probably need to install extra drivers for your graphics card, other than that all should be fine (of course minor adjustments will have to be made).


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#4 2009-04-26 05:58:48

3nd3r
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From: /dev/null
Registered: 2002-12-08
Posts: 301
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Re: Install on HD for transplant into another machine?

that and of course your mount points cause of UUID.

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#5 2009-04-26 12:32:28

R00KIE
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From: Between a computer and a chair
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 4,734

Re: Install on HD for transplant into another machine?

3nd3r wrote:

that and of course your mount points cause of UUID.

If UUID is used then swapping the disk or cloning it to another disk with dd will work perfectly smile


R00KIE
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#6 2009-04-26 12:59:47

bwh1969
Member
Registered: 2008-01-05
Posts: 151

Re: Install on HD for transplant into another machine?

Use Chakra live. http://chakra-project.org/

It is Arch with kdemods enabled, so as long as you like kde4, you are good to go.  You can still install gnome later.  There is a "live" usb image.  It boots with all hardware detection, but you can save sessions if you want to save your configuration.  You can also boot from the usb image and then install it to the hard drive of the booted machine.  I think this is what you are looking for:-)

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#7 2009-04-26 13:04:21

arch0r
Member
From: From the Chron-o-John
Registered: 2008-05-13
Posts: 597

Re: Install on HD for transplant into another machine?

bwh1969 wrote:

Use Chakra live. http://chakra-project.org/

It is Arch with kdemods enabled, so as long as you like kde4, you are good to go.  You can still install gnome later.  There is a "live" usb image.  It boots with all hardware detection, but you can save sessions if you want to save your configuration.  You can also boot from the usb image and then install it to the hard drive of the booted machine.  I think this is what you are looking for:-)

lol

you didn't read the thread, didn't you wink big_smile

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#8 2009-04-26 18:05:39

3nd3r
Member
From: /dev/null
Registered: 2002-12-08
Posts: 301
Website

Re: Install on HD for transplant into another machine?

R00KIE wrote:
3nd3r wrote:

that and of course your mount points cause of UUID.

If UUID is used then swapping the disk or cloning it to another disk with dd will work perfectly smile

i just re-read the topic and all I can say to myself is DUUUH

I didnt see the HDD swap part, the UUID would be the same xD

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#9 2009-04-26 22:07:40

SubGothius
Member
Registered: 2009-04-07
Posts: 13

Re: Install on HD for transplant into another machine?

B wrote:

It's a pretty basic question - so searching the forum would reveal that to you wink.

I actually did try searching the forum first for quite a while, but apparently I didn't try the magic keywords that would have led to what I was looking for. roll

Arch is as portable as can be. Initcpio image needs regeneration and you'll probably need to install extra drivers for your graphics card, other than that all should be fine (of course minor adjustments will have to be made).

Thx for confirming this should work and providing tips to help reacclimate Arch to its new host smile after the drive transplant.

Hm, so about regenerating Initpcio, can I just run 'mkinitcpio' on the new host to perform the same sort of autodetect-and-generate that happened during the original install, or will I likely need to tinker with manual configs as documented in http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Con … mkinitcpio ?

If it depends on hardware differences, what are some key differences that would tell me I'd need to reconfigure /etc/mkinitcpio.conf on the new host before regenerating?  FWIW, they're both i686 with IDE/PATA and USB, but different wifi cards.  I presume I should boot the new host with /boot/kernel26-fallback.img until I generate a slimmer image tailored to that machine, correct?


Best regards,
-Tye
"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is." (-Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut)

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