Hi.
Question [A]:
Can I keep my current Linux installation after replacing my motherboard (only that)?
Details:
Nothing major will change. Actually, everything will remain the same (cpu architecture remains, ata remains ata, sdram remains sdram, etc...) except one thing. From now on there will be two cpus instead of one (as my new MoBo supports two P3 tualatin CPUs). That's the whole change.
Apology:
I know that this question was answered multiple times here at LQ (
here and
here for e.g.), but I need to know for sure.
I made a theory of mine to answer my own question, so I'd like to ask everybody (who reads this thread of course) to verify it.
The theory:
Since nothing major changes (replacing a P3 MoBo to another P3 MoBo), and I currently have a "generic" kernel supplied by my distribution of choice, my system should detect the new chipset without any problems (as it would detect a new sound card for example). Why I think this should happen, is that this "generic" kernel has all the drivers integrated, which is good, because during each boot up the kernel "re-detects" the system hardware. From the kernel's perspective the MoBo change is nothing else but another usual hardware change, and because of this it should boot normally.
Question [B]: Somewhere I read that after the MoBo replacement I need to generate a new initrd image. Is that so?
Question [C]: In one of the linked posts someone pointed out that it is possible to put in a single linux installation into completely different computers (assuming the CPU architecture is the same in each PC) without any troubles, but it is not recommended. Why?
My theory tells me that the kernel doesn't care what drivers it needs to load during hardware detection, so I don't really understand why isn't it recommended to put the installation into different PCs.
Thanks for reading!