Hello,
I’ve two Celeron CPUs I’ll upgrade to AMD 64 X2, i.e., change processor, motherboard and memory. If possible I’d like to keep the system (OS 10.2) currently installed on the hard drives.
My question is: is it possible to boot the upgraded machines with the 10.2 DVD to re-detect the new hardware, and so mantain the current system/apps/configurations? Eventually I’ll upgrade to OS 11, but can’t do it now.
P.S.: Data files will be adequately backed up.
Thanks
Certainly not practical, especially considering 10.2 is end of life.
If you can backup and just keep your /home - that would be my way forward.
You did not say, but would the celeron’s be 32 bit? And you are moving up to _64?
Enough said?
I suppose though there is a choice of going forward in two steps: first get it running with the existing OS, then upgrade the OS; or one big switchover.
If you go for the two stage update, chances are you will have to check the device paths in /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab. But I forget, did 10.2 predate udev paths? Also any modules loaded from the initrd to deal with disk controllers. Those things would prevent you from mounting the root FS. After that, there would be the onboard NIC, hopefully it’s supported in 10.2. And of course you’d be running a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit machine. Not a hanging crime though.
Good points. However, both are 64 bits. Also there is a lot of customized stuff I’ll have to redo (like VMs, shares and such), and I don’t have the time right now, but i do want the increased performance, specially for the structural analysis apps that run in a windows VM.
Also when I upgrade the OS I’ll want to install 11.1, but IMO it’s advisable to wait at least a few weeks for the bugfix/security updates and additional repositories fill in, at least for production (work) machines.
So what I’m wishing for is a 30 min system reconfiguration, instead of the hour-plus install and 3-4 days re-compiling & reinstalling & (maybe) reconfiguring everything that’s not in the repositories, instead of working.
Do you think it’s worth a try or I’m in for a lot of pain?
Thanks again,
I think you will find that the risk of any showstopper issues in 11.1 for a given person is quite low. Bugfixes and security updates are ongoing till the end of life, and there may already be a few in the 11.1 queue ready to install as soon as you have installed 11.1. So that’s not a reason to hold back. If you wait, there will just be more updates to install that’s all.
10.2 ID’s the paths by device (/dev/sda, etc), not by name (scsi-SATA_SAMSUNG_HD250HJS19GJ50Q813811-part1, etc.) I see what you mean, but that would be a problem only if I upgrade the OS, and I intend to make a clean install of 11.1 when I have the time (not soon, certainly not this year).
I was hoping for something like a hardware re-detection, like I did years ago with XP (worked surprisingly well, considering), So I’d have 10.2 working in the new machines with a minimum of time loss.
So, do you think it’s worth it?
Updates and bugfix’s should not be an issue, though some 3rd Party apps may not be available right away so a wait in this respect may be warranted.
Whatever you decide, play it safe and backup important data. It’s possible, though I’m NOT inclined to offer my recommendation. Device ID will be the issue I feel.
[edit] we crossed over
brunomcl wrote:
> So what I’m wishing for is a 30 min system reconfiguration, instead of
> the hour-plus install and 3-4 days re-compiling & reinstalling & (maybe)
> reconfiguring everything that’s not in the repositories, instead of
> working.
>
> Do you think it’s worth a try or I’m in for a lot of pain?
One of the things that installation does is to set the parameters for your
initial ram disk - the drivers you need before the hard drive can be read.
Changing the CPU shouldn’t make a difference, but the disk controller probably
will. After you change the MB, the old system might not boot.
Bite the bullet and do it all at once - upgrade MB and distro.
I understand, but I’m more concerned about apps, not updates (*). At least with 11.0 (in a laptop) a number of applications (and specially libraries) took their time to appear in the third-party repositories, like packman. I’m not complaining, the suse and packman packagers do a great job, only not everything gets ready at once.
Thanks.
(*) exception to this was knetworkmanager, which only worked reliably on the laptop after an update, a couple of weeks after the installation. Thankfully I could use the wired card.
I understand this would happen if I just changed the hardware and rebooted the installed system (I’m not changing the hard drive). Sure way to kernel panic.
What I’m asking really is if the installer can detect the new hardware and make the appropriate config without needing to reinstall everything.
Well you don’t have to be that desperate, a reinstall is never warranted, but you might have to use the repair system (there is no “installer” on the disk) to fix things up. As pointed out, these are the areas you might have to fix up.
Disk controller, may have to figure out the right module to load and then to rerun mkinitrd to put this into the initrd
Device paths, should be ok as you say
Video card, may need to run sax2 from a console login to detect new controller
NIC, may have to detect new NIC, can be done after a successful boot
Sound, similar story
You could always plonk the disk into the new system (make a backup first of course) and see how you go. That should take no more than 10 minutes.
What I’m asking really is if the installer can detect the new hardware and make the appropriate config without needing to reinstall everything.
Yes. But there will be a myriad of conflicts with the currently installed packages, you would have to lock them all to do not modify.
This assumes you are just continuing with 10.2
If you throw a move to 11.1 in the mix - it will be necessary to re-install.
Yes, OK. I just want to avoid installing 11.0 now and 11.1 a few weeks later. I think I’ll:
OR
If I do option 2 I’ll post back the results.
Thank you all for your help. This is a real useful community.
An update on the update: 
After changing the hardware I booted with the 10.2 DVD and chose Installation / Repair. It worked quite well, only issues were:
What I learned is that there is a good chance a repair will work, with a little intervention.
After this I wanted to keep 10.2, but there are no more repositories for it in opensuse.org, so… where is that 11.1 DVD I downloaded last week?