Best way to replace my wife's computer without losing her current setup?

[Bill Statler]

My wife is running LMDE2 on old hardware, and it's time to replace pretty much everything.

If this were my computer, I'd just do a fresh installation of LMDE2, add all the packages I want, and fiddle with settings and preferences for a month until I got everything the way I wanted it.

If I tried to make my wife do that... well, bad things would happen.

What's the best way to move her to new hardware, and preserve all her software and settings and preferences? Will it work if I just copy all the partitions on her old hard drive to the new computer, or is LMDE2 going to have problems with that?

Thanks for any advice.

[Reorx]

OK, so what is the actual plan? Are you going to get another computer and try to migrate everything over?... - OR - are you planning to upgrade (some of) the hardware in the current computer?

If you are going to try to migrate to a completely new hardware set, I would not recommend merely "copying" partitions. Cloning the installation with something like Clonezilla might work well though... The nice thing about migrating to new hardware is that it is not destructive...

[Pierre]

if you are only intending to update the LMDE2 to a later version,
then you should backup all files in the /home folder to another ext HDD.

after that is done, then it depends on the actual partitioning arrangement,
that the current HDD has got:
eg: a separate / root,, /home,, /swap
or just a /root,, /swap
- which arrangement does the HDD have now ?.

but, if you are planning to move her to a totally new hardware system,
then you could use Clonezilla or Gparted to clone the old HDD to the new HDD,
or - - you could just go for it & perform a fresh install of LMDE2 on the new HDD itself,
& then copy those files back from the ext HDD, but you will lose any settings on the old system.

[z31fanatic]

As other have mentioned, the easiest way is to clone the current hard drive to the hard drive of the new computer.

[Bill Statler]

Thanks, all. To clarify, yes, the plan is to replace ALL her hardware (except for the monitor, keyboard, and mouse). She is already running the current version of LMDE2, so no software upgrades needed.

Clonezilla looks like a good option -- thank you, I didn't know about that one.

[kwisher]

You can also just move the existing hard drive to the new PC if it is still in good health. Only issue to be aware of if doing this is if you are using any non-free video drivers on the original PC and the new PC does not have the same Mfg. video card/system. Just to be safe you can remove the non-free video drivers before moving the hard drive.

[deleted]

I've swapped the hard drive from a pc that was ASUS motherboard, AMD chip, and Nvidia card to a Dell with Intel chip with integrated graphics with no problem.
-H

[z31fanatic]

You can also just move the existing hard drive to the new PC if it is still in good health.

No, it's the perfect time for him to get a SSD. Anyone still running spinning hard drives in 2017 should be slapped silly.

[Bill Statler]

No, it's the perfect time for him to get a SSD. Anyone still running spinning hard drives in 2017 should be slapped silly.

Yup, there will definitely be a SSD as the main drive in the new computer. Probably a larger HD also, for storing big files where speed isn't an issue.

Thanks, kwisher and hinto, for the video driver info.

Now all I have to do is compare 3,000,000 different hardware options and pick one...

[MountDew]

You can also just move the existing hard drive to the new PC if it is still in good health.

No, it's the perfect time for him to get a SSD. Anyone still running spinning hard drives in 2017 should be slapped silly.

Well consider me slapped silly !! HAHAHA HEHEHE !

[z31fanatic]

Well consider me slapped silly !! HAHAHA HEHEHE !