Will Linux boot after alot hardware changes?
 

I have these worries.. I will soon be upgrading my machine to A64, new motherboard (pci->pcix) and a new graphic card. I was just wondering, will linux boot.. since I wont be changing hard drives.. :Pengy: I need to know because if reinstall is needed, I will go with a complete format of EVERYTHING!! , thus I should backup some data.. A few projects that shouldn't die or I die.. :p

Unless you move to a new hard drive, you shouldn't have to reinstall everything. You may run into some kernel hiccups, but nothing you wouldn't run into on a new install anyway.

Let us know how it goes!

That said...

Always, always, always, ALWAYS backup your data, especially if your life is on the line! ;)

just a thought...
if i connect my HD to a PC with a better (newer) configuration, Linux would take the new drivers (courtesy kudzu) (hopefully, if sweb succeeds). now if i revert the HD to my older configuration, is linux going t work? (i came to know that windows does not)
PS: when i take my HD to my friends place i have to access linux from an app like explore2fs from Windows. was just thinking if there is a way to avoid this by booting Linux from my HD instead

Ok, what I'm hearing is that you want to use your hard drive to boot linux on your friend's computer, and are wondering if it will still boot yours when you bring it back home.

Assuming your friend's computer is configured to allow you to boot from an external hard drive (if the hard drive in question is external), that there's no unusual hardware involved, and, again, assuming your kernel is vanilla, there shouldn't be too much problem booting both computers with your hard drive.

Linux handles device drivers differently than Windows, which makes a big fuss about finding new hardware.

Long answer short, "yes".

LOL !!
thanks Charred..

Anytime.

Let us know how it goes.

Try to boot the new PC using 64 bit LiveCD.
Try to access your old data from the LiveCD.

Later, create new empty partition on the hard disk and install the LiveCD into the new partition.

http://www.frozentech.com/content/li...All&sort=&sm=1

Oops. Thought I had mentioned this. Thanks, xyzxyz!

If you're changing from a 32-bit architecture to a 64-bit architecture, you'll WANT to go to a 64-bit distribution so you can take advantage of your go-faster processor.

However, the 64-bit distribution won't run on your friend's computer unless it's architecture is also 64-bit.

Thought i should update on this.
I had a friend at my place who bought his HDD with Debian on it. (MY HDD has Redhat) I tried to boot with Debian HDD with RedHat HDD as slave on my CPU, it did come up with a command prompt, but it did not give me an X server. Now that, i understand, is because the Monitor,Mouse etc drivers were not picked up by Debian.
Then i made Redhat HDD as primary and Debian as slave. I had a few expectation from Redhat as it has Kudzu to detect new hardware(the debian HDD, i mean). (i havnt worked on Debian... so i am not aware of any hardware detection utility there, if present.. :P forgive my ignorance). But to my surprise it did not even come up with the command prompt. the booting wld stop at 'Starting System Logger...'
it booted fine after i removed the Debian HDD.

The reason Debian booted to a CLI is because X wasn't configed correctly for the video card, that's all.

I can't speak to the Red Hat, haven't tried it yet.

Here is the really great thing about Linux:

If you know what hardware you are going to be installing, or even swapping motherboards, you can compile a kernel which includes modules to support both your existing hardware and the new hardware you plan to upgrade to - then just swap the drive and everything should run fine - with the possible exception of Xorg/XFree86, which merely needs to be reconfigured. If you're keeping the same video cards the changes may be limited to simply pointing at the right bus IDs, which can be obtained by running lspci :)