Upgrading the Motherboards of Linux Boxen? 35
synchronicity asks: "I just got a new motherboard and processor and would otherwise like to keep my system setup exactly as it is now. Every site I have visited about upgrading a motherboard and processor ends with something to the effect of 'When your machine boots up, Windows will be confused for a little bit, but will detect all your hardware as new, reboot itself a few times, and then you'll be up and running again.' All well and good, except that I don't run Windows. So what do I need to do to get my Linux (Mandrake 7.2) system to recognize the new PCI bus addresses/interrupts/etc. to make this upgrade a success?" What things do you do in preparation for such a procedure?
Re:1) Write down everything (Score:2, Interesting)
So, if you're upgrading, you really ought to reinstall no matter what OS you're running.
-NeoTomba
Re:1) Write down everything (Score:2)
So, if you're upgrading, you really ought to reinstall no matter what OS you're running.
What are you smoking? Even cheap crack won't give you that kind of buzz...
When you first boot up, you're right -- you won't get all the nifty new features. However you do not need to <cough> reinstall -- just recompile the kernel and any key apps you run. You will not see a performance increase on your P4 by recompiling everything. Hell 99% of the time the compiler is generating i386 or i486-optimized code!
Not even on Windows do you get much added benefit by reinstalling -- the drivers are i386, the applications are i386, everything is compiled for the lowest common denominator. The higher-end drivers will be optimized for P5 or P6, but that's about it unless you have some really specialized hardware or tweaked drivers for multimedia codecs.
Windows blows chunks for doing major hardware upgrades because the OS becomes confused when you change "too much" at once. It blows chunks because most of the configuration is stored in a proprietary binary format. It blows chunks because its only partially able to come down to a textmode level so you can clean up. NT is better at this than Win95/98/ME, but it's still not close to the flexibility you have with Linux/FreeBSD. One of my most favourite things is how you can pull a HDD out of pretty much any i386 platform and snap it into another one and boot up. If you compile in a ton of network drivers as modules, you can damn near get net access on any computer with that same drive. Try that with Windows.
Re:1) Write down everything (Score:1)
Boot in safe mode.. Regedit, go to the HKey_Local_Machine.
Delete the ENUM tree.
Reboot. If it doesn't go into add new hardware by itself, do that.
Should be all set. I've moved from 486's to new Celeron's this way, works for me. Even gone down from Celeron 466 to a P120, without problems.
Re:1) Write down everything (Score:1)
(Yes-- it's offtopic, but I don't care.)
This isn't a good idea. I really wish I could get my technicians to stop doing it. There are items there that will never "re-appear" magically. Take a look under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\SW. Those items won't "re-detect".
You would do better to boot in safe mode, and hand remove everything from the "Device Mangler" except for the software media items ("Microsoft Streaming Clock Proxy", "Microsoft Streaming Service Proxy"), the "IO read data port for ISA Plug and Play enumerator", and "Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator". Leave those alone, and reboot. Let it detect (it may complain that your video adapter is mal-configured-- that's a good sign-- let it detect). It might take a couple boots. Load your INF updates, drivers, etc, and you should be all set.
Re:1) Write down everything (Score:1)
Re:1) Write down everything (Score:2, Informative)
what you do is create a second profile. when you reboot the hard drive in a new box after shutting down, you select the second profile so that it will find all the new hardware. the system should work fine. if you start to have problems, you just use your old mobo and other hardware (you DID save it, right?) to get you backup and running.
creating a secondary profile is also what allows you to switch your hard drive between different boxen, like I do all the time. I pull my hard drive out, take it to my buddy's house 100 miles away, stick it in his system and boot, and then show him the slick stuff I got, all without having to backup nothing to Zip or anything else.
Re:1) Write down everything (Score:2)
Just recompile your kernel. There is no reason to a erase a bunch of packages then put them all back. Just recompile and re-do your X-Windows settings for the new hardware.
You don't do a thing (Score:1)
And it will start up (text mode will defineately work)
then you recompile the kernel to include the new drivers ( or you compile them as modules and you're done in 30 sec )
voila
Do the same (Score:2, Insightful)
Serious, Linux's hardware management is way superior to Windows', provided the hardware is compliant (which is most of it now that ISA PNP is out). Try it, you'll be surprised.
Re:Do the same (Score:1)
Simple... (Score:3, Informative)
Even changing mobos on windows isn't -that- bad. I've got my dad's machine still running the factory win95 install (he refuses to let me reinstall or upgrade) after both a mobo and HDD upgrade. All you need to do is go to the device manager and remove devices before you shutdown the final time. When you come back up it'll re-recognize all the devices, and you're good to go.
No problems at all. (Score:2)
My first distribution was Slackware 3.0, but after having some problems with it, I moved to Redhat 4.3, and stuck with it to this day (running 7.2 atm). Somewhere along my computer upgrades, I ended up with a spare 4.3 Gb hdd, and I decided to give Slack a try again. I installed it on my box, I decided I liked it, but the school year started, before I could do anything more with it. So it stayed unused for a couple of months.
BTW, the box that I used for the install was a Dual Celeron on an Abit BP6 board, TNT2 video, SB Live sound, CDROM, 3Com nic, etc.
Then I decided to upgrade my gateway, from a P100 to something more, and I got a good deal on a P166 box, complete with ATI video (Rage II), no sound, no CDROM, no hdd, nothing else.
Since I had the 4.3Gb hdd already with Slack on it, I decided to give it a try. I also added a Dlink and a 3Com nic, and a sb16. I was amazed to find out that EVERYTHING worked out of the box, except XFree86, but that was to be expected! I did not touch anything, and everyting was configured, as if Slack had been installed on the p166, and not on a DUAL Celeron.
So with any luck your box should be useable, with only minor tweaks. You are keeping everything the same (video, sound, nics, etc), and are just changing the CPU and mb. You should run into even fewer problems than with Windows.
Shouldn't have to do a thing (Score:2)
With Linux, you shouldn't have to do a thing, assuming you didn't have a crazy drive controller that was remapping the hard drive in a strange way. (Rare, and unheard of on anything post-486, afaik.)
At worst, you may have to make a boot disk and run lilo or equivalent on the new machine. Making a boot disk just takes a few seconds, and it may save you a headache - do that before you yank things apart.
If the thing does topple, it's more likely to be on starting X than anything else. Be sure you know how to disable kdm/gdm/xdm long enough to play with your configuration and you'll be okay.
Linux - no problem. (Score:2, Interesting)
Windows had a shit-fit. Claimed to have found all new EVERYthing - hard disks, sound cards, modems, cd drives, video, mice. Sometimes it found two or three of each kind, and it kept on finding new stuff at every reboot. Ended up having to do a complete reinstall, which was no real hardship since I only use that partition for games. But even with a clean re-install it doesn't seem to be able to shutdown or reboot from Windows anymore.
Re:Linux - no problem. (Score:1)
My advice is to clean the drive as much as possible before a reinstall of Windows. This is especially true if you are upgrading/downgrading it from one version to another. If you have SCSI drives, I would suggest going into your controller config and low-level formatting them. If this is impossible, either delete and recreate the partition, or add a "/u" to your DOS format command (or both). This should properly zero out the filesystem on the drive, and eliminate the chances of a buggy reinstall (like you probably have now).
- Freed
Fdisk it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure (Score:1)
Very true. Fdisk and mkdosfs worked well for me as an alternative to the above.
As everyone else is saying... (Score:1, Redundant)
I did an upgrade from a P200 motherboard with 96 meg of 72pin SIMM memory, to a Celeron 366 with 128meg of SDRAM (since then expanded to 768 meg) - and I think the only problem I encountered was with my ZIP drive not working properly due to a funkiness with the parallel port, but that was due to a bios setting, IIRC.
Anyhow, you shouldn't have any problems. As you can see, mine was a pretty radical upgrade (waaay different motherboards, chipsets, RAM, etc), but it was really easy.
Now, you want to know about funky - you should see my hybrid SuSE 6.3/7.2 Personal install/upgrade...
As the others say (Score:2)
linux (Redhat 6.something at the time) booted first time, no problem. I recompiled the kernel later just to update a few things (eg, CPU type). I could probably have done that before taking the box down, so you could count this as one boot if you have a box up all the time and plan it right.
Windows (95, version 2 with USB support) required something like 3-4 reboots as it tried to find drivers for everything. It eventually booted up OK and actually worked pretty well.
As plenty others have said, provided you don't have anything "funny", you should be OK. Despite what others say, your X setup should probably still work fine, but you may wish to disable it before taking the box down (eg, by changing default runlevel for redhat or removing the xdm init script in /etc/rc?.d). If you've compiled in some weird IDE controller or whatever, linux will probably still boot, but a stock linux kernel (ie, whatever came with your distribution) is likely to be your safest bet.
XP and MB upgrades -- oops (Score:1)
Ha! Not under XP it won't... You'll have to call someone at MS to issue a new Product ID to activate your PC.
Re:XP and MB upgrades -- oops (Score:1)
The only user hurt by the new MS leash is the home user that loves hardware upgrades.
That is, unless he goes to South East Asia and picks up a copy of XP that has been hacked...they are going cheap. Last I heard you could pick up a cracked copy of XP in Hong Kong for under $10 US.
Re:XP and MB upgrades -- oops (Score:1)
CPUs and kernels (Score:1)
Linux checks all the CPU features (3DNow, MMX) and bugs (FDIV, F00F, HLT) on startup anyway, so no problems there; it should also auto-detect everything fine and deal with it. If you've got a custom kernel, you'll want to reconfigure it to support your new chipset for things like AGP, and also see if you have any bugfix items out for your chipset. Stock kernels have anything and everything on hand to deal, so things should be good with them.
Upgrade time is a good time for Spring Cleaning (Score:1)
Sod the reinstall - it's not windows (Score:1)
Each time I install linux on a different box I spend a bit of time tracking down my favourite apps and loading them on. The home machine, however, has had linux progressively upgraded to avoid that, and there's still a bit of Slackware 2.0 lurking on the drive (which is a couple of drives newer that the original) under the RedHat 7.1 exterior. Doing a fresh install and copying a lot of old stuff over sometimes works, but you'll still spend a bit of time fixing all of the things that are broken.
The system I use now started on a P60, was cloned to a 486-100, was moved to a K5-133, then to another K5 on a board in better condition, then to a dual celeron 300. Frequent kernel compiles (hardware support gets better all of the time), numerous downloads and four software upgrades from CD later (RedHats 5.2, 6.0, 6.2, 7.1) and I have the current system. None of what I did was difficult, everything gave me a console on boot first try (using the kernel compiled on the previous configuration) and I never lost any data by accident. The slackware to redhat transition did require me to do a fresh install and copy my old files over the top, which worked happily.
Linux does not have DLL hell - libraries have version numbers. Every now and again it's worth deleting old programs, and moving old libraries out of the way to see if anything still uses them, but a full re-install will waste a lot of time unless you want to use a stock standard system. I have programs from 1996 that I still use every week, that have not had a line of code written since and won't recompile to use new libraries. Just keep the old ones - gtk tends to get upset if it finds old versions, but there's simple ways around that, and most other stuff is well behaved.