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Moving linux install to a new computer

A buddy of mine has found me a new server for our role-playing forums we run and my other web sites. I finally have my current server stable and running good though it is a bit slow (AMD 2400+ 2 GB RAM). I am running Ubuntu 11.4 (maybe?).

I don't know what I am getting yet or if there are hard drives in the system. If there are no hard drives, can I just put my hard drive from the existing computer into the new one? If there is a hard drive (or RAID), what would be the best approach to migrate the server to the new one?

I am running LAMP with WordPress, phpBB and couple other small web applications. I also have SVN running. That is basically it. I keep all software up-to-date.

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What will you be migrating? What versions of current software packages you are using are there? – Karlson Feb 3 '12 at 16:43
I'm sorry, it didn't cross my mind to do that. Added some detail. – Mike Wills Feb 3 '12 at 16:46

marked as duplicate by Gilles, Michael Mrozek♦ Feb 5 '12 at 0:56

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If there are no hard drives, can I just put my hard drive from the existing computer into the new one?

Sometimes, this works just fine, you'll have to try it.

There will likely be different network, audio, graphics drivers, but you might be lucky enough to simply start your new server with the old drive installed.

Update grub to let your machine boot without the quiet option.
If it's already present, remove it.

Make a backup, install your new disk.

If your networking, doesn't work, look through dmesg and/or lspci to discover the network device, download the .deb file on a second computer, use a USB to copy it to the new server and install the file using dpkg -i file.deb

Once the network is up and working just perform the usual apt upgrade and check to see that everything is working.

If there is a hard drive (or RAID), what would be the best approach to migrate the server to the new one?

you could still try the first path, as it's faster and simpler, then add in the RAID drives later, if you wish

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