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Moving installed MX to a new PC

https://www.forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=63961

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Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 12:31 pm
by cancunia
I'd like to use another Laptop for my existing MX Linux build, can I simply move the hard disk from one to the other? If I do will there be problems or poor performance?
I'm currently using an HP Laptop, moving to a Fujitsu.
I've put the system info here.

Thanks

Code: Select all

System:    Host: <filter> Kernel: 4.19.0-6-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 8.3.0 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-6-amd64 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 tk: Gtk 3.24.5 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM 1.26.0 
           Distro: MX-19.3_x64 patito feo February 15  2020 base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP EliteBook 6930p v: F.20 
           serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 30DB v: KBC Version 87.2B serial: <filter> 
           BIOS: Hewlett-Packard v: 68PCU Ver. F.20 date: 12/08/2011 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 43.9 Wh condition: 43.9/55.1 Wh (80%) volts: 12.5/10.8 
           model: Hewlett-Packard Primary type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Full 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core2 Duo P8700 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Penryn 
           family: 6 model-id: 17 (23) stepping: A (10) microcode: A0B L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 10107 
           Speed: 1596 MHz min/max: 800/2534 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1596 
           2: 1596 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: EPT disabled 
           Type: mds status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT disabled 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: spec_store_bypass status: Vulnerable 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
           driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:2a42 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: intel resolution: 1440x900~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Mobile Intel GM45 Express v: 2.1 Mesa 18.3.6 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 82801I HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:293e 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-6-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82567LM Gigabit Network vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: e1000e 
           v: 3.2.6-k port: 70e0 bus ID: 00:19.0 chip ID: 8086:10f5 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel Ultimate N WiFi Link 5300 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 7000 
           bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 8086:4236 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 565.78 GiB (60.7%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB size: 931.51 GiB 
           block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 3.0 Gb/s rotation: 5400 rpm 
           serial: <filter> rev: 0002 scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 588.72 GiB size: 578.48 GiB (98.26%) used: 513.97 GiB (88.8%) 
           fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 37.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-earth-pro.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/earth/deb/ stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/megasync.list 
           1: deb https://mega.nz/linux/MEGAsync/Debian_10.0/ ./
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mxlinux.mirrors.uk2.net/packages/mx/repo/ buster main non-free
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera-stable.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teams.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/ms-teams stable main
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yandex-disk.list 
           1: deb http://repo.yandex.ru/yandex-disk/deb/ stable main
Info:      Processes: 207 Uptime: 9h 14m Memory: 2.86 GiB used: 1.73 GiB (60.5%) Init: SysVinit 
           v: 2.93 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 alt: 8 Shell: quick-system-in 
           running in: quick-system-in inxi: 3.0.36

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 12:40 pm
by uncle mark
By all rights you should be fine. The only question mark might be if the Fujitsu uses different graphics, but even then it should work and all that might be needed are some adjustments.

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 12:44 pm
by cancunia
Thanks for the quick reply, I'll give it a spin tomorrow.

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2021 4:51 am
by cancunia
Unfortunately the Fujitsu does not recognise the disk from the HP as bootable. I've built another MX system on the Fujitsu and that's working fine. I'm not sure which Laptop is causing the problem so will need another way to migrate from one to the other.
Snapshot seems to want to make an ISO of the whole partition which in my case is about 500GB, I'lll read a bit more about that tool as it's maybe something I'm doing wrong. IN the mean time, if anyone has a good suggestion for migrating from one Laptop to another, I'd be really grateful to know about it.

Thanks

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2021 5:18 am
by baldyeti
it _might_ be that the original system was set to boot in BIOS mode (presumably with an MBR-partitioned disk) whereas the newer one is set to boot in UEFI mode - try to enter the startup (firmware) menus of the Fujitsu and see if there is an obtion to enable BIOS boot mode (often called legacy mode).

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2021 5:50 am
by cancunia
Just checked the BIOS, legacy mode (CSM) is enabled on the Fujitsu.

Is there another way to migrate from one PC to another?

Thanks

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:11 am
by baldyeti
What error message are you seeing ?

Do you get a grub boot menu at all ?

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:12 am
by cancunia
The message is something like 'No Bootable Device Found' but the disk does appear in the list of devices.

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:17 am
by baldyeti
if you boot (the new system, Fujitsu if i followed correctly) with an MX USB stick (or DVD), can you mount and see the content of the HD ? You could then try the "MX boot repair" tool from the live session

While running that live session, please launch the "Quick System Info" and post its output so we can compare with the original system.

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:58 am
by cancunia
That's a good idea, I have an MX boot USB that I used to create the new system on the Fujitsu so could try to see if I can mount the old disk from the HP in the Fujitsu but am not really keen on altering the the HP disk as it's my live system.
I'm going to take a look at Clonezilla to see how that works.

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2021 6:36 am
by cancunia
baldyeti wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 5:18 am it _might_ be that the original system was set to boot in BIOS mode (presumably with an MBR-partitioned disk) whereas the newer one is set to boot in UEFI mode - try to enter the startup (firmware) menus of the Fujitsu and see if there is an obtion to enable BIOS boot mode (often called legacy mode).
Seems that my legacy HP 6930p won't simply move to the Fujitsu or the other way, it must be to do with the differences between BIOS & UEFI and how the disks are partitioned during install. I've built the Fujitsu with the latest MX distro on a spare disk & it runs fine but the Fujitsu disk won't boot the HP. Excuse my ignorance on this subject, but the disks on the 2 machines are partitioned differently, the Fujitsi has a small first partition that the HP does not.

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2021 4:26 pm
by baldyeti
Well your HP QSI showed the disk is partitioned following the MBR scheme, and then later you confimed the Fujitsu had CSM/legacy enabled, so I would have expected it to work, too.

What may have happened is that even though legacy was possible, UEFI is preferred on the (newer?) Fujitsu and your USB installation key booted in that mode and the installer followed suit On most machines you can activate a boot menu and an installation key will show up both as a UEFI device and a legacy device. Which of these two you choose determines how the system starts (and probably what default partitioning mode the installer will adopt, but i only use MBR, precisely because i like to keep it possible to swap disks around,& only have older HW)

Anyway you now have two working MX systems, yay! There are ways to save your package selection on the HP to install the same ones on the Fujitsu if you want.

The smaller partition is probably the so-called ESP, only needed and present on UEFI systems. If you post your Fujitsu QSI, it probably will show a GPT partitioning scheme.

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2021 3:42 am
by cancunia
Here's the Fujitsu QSI.

Code: Select all

System:    Host: <filter> Kernel: 4.19.0-16-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 8.3.0 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-16-amd64 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 tk: Gtk 3.24.5 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM 1.26.0 
           Distro: MX-19.4_x64 patito feo March 31  2021 base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: FUJITSU product: LIFEBOOK AH512 v: N/A serial: <filter> Chassis: 
           type: 10 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: FUJITSU model: FJNBB29 serial: <filter> UEFI: FUJITSU // Phoenix 
           v: Version 1.24 date: 09/14/2018 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 39.2 Wh condition: 40.3/47.5 Wh (85%) volts: 3.9/10.8 
           model: PAC BAT1 type: Unknown serial: <filter> status: Charging 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Pentium B960 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Sandy Bridge 
           family: 6 model-id: 2A (42) stepping: 7 microcode: 2F L2 cache: 2048 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 bogomips: 8779 
           Speed: 798 MHz min/max: 800/2200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 798 2: 798 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Vulnerable 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: spec_store_bypass 
           mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, 
           STIBP: disabled, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics 
           vendor: Fujitsu Limited. driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:0106 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Sandybridge Mobile v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.6 compat-v: 3.0 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio vendor: Fujitsu Limited. 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:1e20 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-16-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: efa0 
           bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 8086:0887 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
           vendor: Fujitsu Limited. driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
           chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 698.64 GiB used: 340.27 GiB (48.7%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD7500BPVT-16HXZT3 size: 698.64 GiB 
           block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 3.0 Gb/s rotation: 5400 rpm 
           serial: <filter> rev: 1A03 scheme: GPT 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 696.36 GiB size: 684.43 GiB (98.29%) used: 340.26 GiB (49.7%) 
           fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap swappiness: 15 (default 60) 
           cache pressure: 100 (default) dev: /dev/sda3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 49.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/megasync.list 
           1: deb https://mega.nz/linux/MEGAsync/Debian_10.0/ ./
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mxlinux.mirrors.uk2.net/packages/mx/repo/ buster main non-free
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yandex-disk.list 
           1: deb http://repo.yandex.ru/yandex-disk/deb/ stable main
Info:      Processes: 202 Uptime: 41m Memory: 5.71 GiB used: 1.41 GiB (24.7%) Init: SysVinit 
           v: 2.93 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 alt: 8 Shell: quick-system-in 
           running in: quick-system-in inxi: 3.0.36
Thanks for your help in getting this understood a bit better. The Fujitsu is limited as the B960 CPU won't support 64bit VM's and by the looks of things will only support UEFI on the hard disk, but has a nice screen for day to day stuff. I used Aptik GTK to migrate the applications & some settings which worked really well. I've been thinking for a while now that large system disks are a bit of a liability when it comes to migration between systems and considered using an external drive to make things more portable. I'm going to keep my VM's on an external drive going forwards so if I do need the 64bit capability I can just plug into the HP.

Re: Moving installed MX to a new PC

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2021 11:44 am
by baldyeti
You could also dedicate less space to the system (30-50GB should be enough) and allocate the rest to home and/or data partition(s). This way if you re-install you can leave the data part untouched.
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