Need to copy OS + hard drive contents between two machines with different hardware.
 

I have a linux box that I need to duplicate everything on there onto another machine.
The machines are not identical and the other machine doesn't even have linux installed on it yet.
Please help!

What are the specs of your machines and maybe I could give you a better response. Are they all PCs? What size hdd's do they have, if they are the same, just swap out the hdd's. I really need the specs.

Thanks for your response. The machine I want to copy from looks like it was built in-house (it's a machine someone sent my boss) but the machine I want to copy to is an eMachine T2040. I will see if I can get more details on the machine I want to copy from. The specs for the machine I want to copy to are as follows:
Intel® Celeron® Processor 2 GHz (w/128KB L2 cache & 400MHz FSB)
Intel 845GL Chipset
7.25"w x 14.125"h x 16"d
40 GB HDD
256 MB DDR (PC2100)
56K* ITU v.92 ready Fax/Modem
10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
40x12x40 Max. CD-RW Drive; 3.5" 1.44MB FDD
Keyboard, Wheel Mouse, Stereo Speakers
6 USB 2.0 ports (2 on front), 1 Serial, 1 Parallel, 2 PS/2, Mic-In & Head Phone jack on front, Audio-In & Out, 3 PCI slots (2 available)
AC '97 Audio
Intel Extreme Graphics 3D (845GL shared)

What about the one you are copying from?

I forgot to mention that I'm not very good with Linux. As best as I can tell, the machine is an i686 running Linux OS (I'm assuming Red Hat) with revision 2.4.18.3. Please let me know if there's a way I can supply more of the information you're looking for without having to open this box up and look at each component (which I will do if I have to).

Well, I'm just wondering the HDD size of it, because if they are the same size, the switch will be very easy.

The machine I'm copying from has a 112GB hard drive (probably really 120GB) with only 12GB of it being used. The machine I want to copy to has a 40GB hard drive in it.

You could always just switch the hdd's unless you are wanting to keep the files on both computers, in which case just connect the computers with a serial cable and move the data over to the oter computer, or install the other hdd to the computer install it to that hdd and put it back in the other one, or hook it up to a network and transfer over, this isnt very detailed but should be sufficient to get you started. sorry, im in a hurry to leave.

If you do have some time and don't mind, please explain further how I would copy all the files over the network - that seems to be the most feasible option for me at this point. The hard drive I want to copy to currently has Windows XP on it and I am obviously going to format that. What I need to know is how to do that so that the same partitions on the machine I'm copying from matches the one on the machine I'm copying to. I hope that makes sense. Thanks for your help thus far.

Wouldn't it make more sense to install a version of Linux on the new machine and then copy the files you want over to it? The installer should give you the option to partition the drive. It needn't be the same as the old machine if you copy stuff across as individual files. What distro will you install? Slackware 10 and Fedora Core 2 are pretty good.

Yeah, I could just install a version of linux and copy the files over. The problem, however is that there are also some programs and all sorts of stuff like that on there that we need. Part of my problem is that I won't know which files to copy over. I'm not sure what you mean by distro. Could you explain?
Thanks!

He means distribution. Division into categories; classification between each linux flavor, or type of linux. Fedora Core 2 is different than Slackware 10, each one has different bugs fixed, each has a different set of tools or software provided with the system. I don't really have much time right now either, because it's 11:34 at night. That's not really too late, but I'm going to the "RZA" concert in the morning and I'm not exactly a good sleeper. I'm a major 'Caffeine Junkie', so I need to get to bed. Another problem is the fact that I'm only 14, and I have lots of stuff to do. Thanks for understanding, and I'll get back to you with the solution to your computer problem.

Kodaxx