Hello All! I have a linux mint 18.3 system running on an AMD cpu. The installation is on a 500 GB SSD. The laptop it is installed on is on its last legs, and I have just purchased a replacement with an Intel cpu. I would like to transfer the SSD from the old (wonky ) laptop to the new Laptop. Will this work, or should I plan on backing up the ssd and totally rebuilding the system?

Thanks,
Don

Yes.

Yes it should work, and yes you take a backup first.

Hi dziesig,

Welcome!

^ and it might take a while to boot the first time in the new machine, but it should be fine after that.

At one time you couldn't easily move linux. Then they got it to it would move rather easily to a new hardware. The problem now with your question is some unknowns.

Are we looking at any video issues? Video on new distro's tries to unify the video from boot to use gui and kind of messed up it's ability to be moved.

Device naming issues. It is possible that your distro may have unique naming that doesn't correctly transport. They can usually be fixed later or made generic before move.

Lastly is the question of uefi and 32/64 bit. Some few modern intel's have a very goofy loader problem. They also may have (like all uefi) a goofy bios.

I rather doubt trying it on this new computer will harm it but didn't I read a suggestion to backup before you try..

If it were me doing this, I'd just do a clean install because.

I suggest you backup your data.

i doubt the binary distro can handle

a different gpu
maybe hybrid graphic box intel + nvidia gpu
changing gpu drivers on the fly
network driver for ethernet / wlan
and than you have the issue with the bootloader. regarding your inital post, i doubt you have the knowledge on how to setup a bootloader

Summary backup / and do a clean install

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regarding the cpu, it depends which kind of linux you installed.
saying linux mint says basically nothing

e.g. i686 / amd64 / sparc / ia64 / arm are some examples of cpu architectres

and than you have those special cpu flags which were used to compile software and the kernel

and again i say this, newbie distros like linux mint are bad for the user. an user does not learn the basics.

it should "Just Work".
i also moved a hd with an install made on a mobo with an AMD cpu, to a new mobo with an intel cpu.
usually, the only thing needs adjusting are graphics drivers.

It isn't just the CPU that is important. All the different components will need to be supported and if the drivers for them are not available then you could struggle if the previous drivers don't work at all with the new hardware.
Usually the software will drop into a default mode until the new drivers are found, but occasionally that just does not work and a full re-install will be needed.

that's why the linux kernel is so big

One of the reasons.
Having been a software developer for many years, and also having done studies on what affects the quality of software, I can say that in good software, the majority of the code is there to handle exceptional conditions.
As a group (quality assurers) we used to expect 90% of the code to handle 10% of possible occurrences and only 10% or less, to perform the function of the code.