[gentoo-user] move instalation from one system to another one.

[gentoo-user] move instalation from one system to another one.

[Platoali]

Hi,

My old laptop  is dying. I'm going to move my gentoo installation to a new 
one.  The old one was an old Pentium-M and the new one is core due. I want to 
to tar the root and boot and ..  files from the old one to untar it to the 
new one. I want to know,  What packages needs to rebuild  (with What flags?) 
in the old one so that I would have a basic runable system  in the new that I 
can rebuild all the packages on the new system with the new FLAGS?

Did anyone do this in the past? Have anyone any experiences regarding this 
issue? Any comments? suggestions?

This is my old laptop make.conf

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=pentium-m -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"

Best regards
Ali Yazdi 

Re: [gentoo-user] move instalation from one system to another one.

[Sebastian Günther]

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* Platoali (platoali@gmail.com) [30.07.08 10:57]:
> Hi,
> 
> My old laptop  is dying. I'm going to move my gentoo installation to a new 
> one.  The old one was an old Pentium-M and the new one is core due. I want to 
> to tar the root and boot and ..  files from the old one to untar it to the 
> new one. I want to know,  What packages needs to rebuild  (with What flags?) 
> in the old one so that I would have a basic runable system  in the new that I 
> can rebuild all the packages on the new system with the new FLAGS?
> 
> Did anyone do this in the past? Have anyone any experiences regarding this 
> issue? Any comments? suggestions?
> 
> This is my old laptop make.conf
> 
> CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
> CFLAGS="-march=pentium-m -O2 -pipe"
> CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
> MAKEOPTS="-j2"
> 

Don't do it.

I think your kernel will only support the pentium-m and most of the 
software also. So a emerge -e world would bee necessary.

Normal Gentoo Installations are highly optemized for the specific 
hardware. That is the whole point about using gentoo.

so save your world file and then setup up gentoo fresh and new. Won't be 
that long, as you now own a core 2 duo...

> Best regards
> Ali Yazdi 
> 

If you want such functionality, use Debian or Ubuntu.

Sebastian

-- 
 " Religion ist das Opium des Volkes. "      Karl Marx

 SEB@STI@N GÜNTHER         mailto:samson@guenther-roetgen.de

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RE: [gentoo-user] move instalation from one system to another one.

[Adam Carter]

> > My old laptop  is dying. I'm going to move my gentoo
> installation to a new
> > one.  The old one was an old Pentium-M and the new one is
> core due. I want to
> > to tar the root and boot and ..  files from the old one to
> untar it to the
> > new one. I want to know,  What packages needs to rebuild
> (with What flags?)
> > in the old one so that I would have a basic runable system
> in the new that I
> > can rebuild all the packages on the new system with the new FLAGS?
> >
> > Did anyone do this in the past? Have anyone any experiences
> regarding this
> > issue? Any comments? suggestions?
> >
> > This is my old laptop make.conf
> >
> > CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
> > CFLAGS="-march=pentium-m -O2 -pipe"
> > CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
> > MAKEOPTS="-j2"
> >
>
> Don't do it.
>
> I think your kernel will only support the pentium-m and most of the
> software also. So a emerge -e world would bee necessary.
>
> Normal Gentoo Installations are highly optemized for the specific
> hardware. That is the whole point about using gentoo.

Do you need to get the new laptop working asap? Eg. for work?

Is the new laptop 32 or 64 bit?

If you need the new laptop running asap, the sub-optimal but fast way is to build all the modules you'll require for your new laptop on the old laptop then copy the disk. Since they tend to only add CPU features and not take them away as time goes on, its worth a try as it will be a lot faster. You can then worry about changing CFLAGs and rebuilding if you like, or just change the CFLAGs and let anything new get built with them. No big deal.

If your system is 64 bit and you want to later run 64 bit OS you'll have to reinstall.

For CFLAGs http://gentoo-wiki.com/Safe_Cflags, and you'll need to change CHOST if you're going 64 bit.

Re: [gentoo-user] move instalation from one system to another one.

[Nicolas Sebrecht]

Sebastian Günther a écrit:

> If you want such functionality, use Debian or Ubuntu.

Or just use the good C*FLAGS and kernel options.

-- 
Nicolas Sebrecht

Re: [gentoo-user] move instalation from one system to another one.

[Daniel da Veiga]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Nicolas Sebrecht
<nicolas.s-dev@laposte.net> wrote:
>
> Sebastian Günther a écrit:
>
>> If you want such functionality, use Debian or Ubuntu.
>
> Or just use the good C*FLAGS and kernel options.
>

Nicolas is right, you can (at your own risk, of course) do a migration
like this, so "DON'T" is not really the only option, and changing
distros is NOT an option in most cases. Gentoo is perfectly capable of
that.

Change flags in make.conf for generic compatible ones, compile a new
kernel (I used genkernel for the migration, and compiled a specific
kernel for the new machine later), emerge -e world and transfer the
system (I used rsync, and had to deal with some network issues),
everything worked (after some fine tunning for the new hardware) for
me. Sometimes the effort is worth, it was my case, YMMV. It takes a
little while (for me, the migration itself took a Sunday afternoon,
like 6 hours), but you can still use your system while emerge does its
work, and while the new kernel compiles. Its less time than a normal
install from the ground up (with the whole configuration process, X,
Window Manager, etc). After the migration, change flags again, and let
emerge do its magic, while you can keep working.

PS: I kept my old system as a backup for a few weeks.

PS2: I had an old Athlon XP 1.2GHz and migrated the whole system to a
Core Duo 2.8GHz, as you may imagine, both machines were COMPLETELY
different, but still I kept all my preferences, packages, files, all
of it. An year before the migration, the Athlon XP was running a
CHOST=i386 and I changed it to i686 with success. Gentoo is sometimes
just magical.

-- 
Daniel da Veiga

[gentoo-user] Re: move instalation from one system to another one.

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Daniel da Veiga wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Nicolas Sebrecht
> <nicolas.s-dev@laposte.net> wrote:
>> Sebastian Günther a écrit:
>>
>>> If you want such functionality, use Debian or Ubuntu.
>> Or just use the good C*FLAGS and kernel options.
>>
> 
> Nicolas is right, you can (at your own risk, of course) do a migration
> like this, so "DON'T" is not really the only option, and changing
> distros is NOT an option in most cases. Gentoo is perfectly capable of
> that.
> 
> Change flags in make.conf for generic compatible ones, compile a new
> kernel (I used genkernel for the migration, and compiled a specific
> kernel for the new machine later), emerge -e world and transfer the
> system (I used rsync, and had to deal with some network issues),
> everything worked (after some fine tunning for the new hardware) for
> me.

Yeah, but that way you're doing emerge -e world twice.  One on the old 
system, and one on the new system (to optimize for the specific CPU 
again; -march=native).  It's usually faster to install from scratch and 
only transfer your setting to the new system.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: move instalation from one system to another one.

[Daniel da Veiga]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 2:15 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> Daniel da Veiga wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Nicolas Sebrecht
>> <nicolas.s-dev@laposte.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Sebastian Günther a écrit:
>>>
>>>> If you want such functionality, use Debian or Ubuntu.
>>>
>>> Or just use the good C*FLAGS and kernel options.
>>>
>>
>> Nicolas is right, you can (at your own risk, of course) do a migration
>> like this, so "DON'T" is not really the only option, and changing
>> distros is NOT an option in most cases. Gentoo is perfectly capable of
>> that.
>>
>> Change flags in make.conf for generic compatible ones, compile a new
>> kernel (I used genkernel for the migration, and compiled a specific
>> kernel for the new machine later), emerge -e world and transfer the
>> system (I used rsync, and had to deal with some network issues),
>> everything worked (after some fine tunning for the new hardware) for
>> me.
>
> Yeah, but that way you're doing emerge -e world twice.  One on the old
> system, and one on the new system (to optimize for the specific CPU again;
> -march=native).  It's usually faster to install from scratch and only
> transfer your setting to the new system.
>

Yes, but still, both emerges may run while you work, so that's not
wasted time, while on a new install, your machine is useless till you
get all that you need running (that's the compilation time for X, an
office suite, a window manager), and after that, you gotta transfer
all your files and settings (that may be tedious), and all of this
takes a time you could use to work...

All I'm saying is that you really don't need to start from scratch, I
personally find it more productive and fast (not to mention less
boring) to prepare and transfer the whole install, and only configure
the new hardware (that is part of a normal new install, so, you can't
avoid that), instead of waiting for compilations to end so you can use
packages on your new machine. Besides, I'm letting the official
portage tool do its job...

Anyway, it is MHO. In some cases, this may fail and a install from
scratch is the only option left. But I never had this bad luck.

-- 
Daniel da Veiga

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: move instalation from one system to another one.

[Nicolas Sebrecht]

Nikos Chantziaras a écrit:

> > Nicolas is right, you can (at your own risk, of course) do a
> > migration like this, so "DON'T" is not really the only option, and
> > changing distros is NOT an option in most cases. Gentoo is
> > perfectly capable of that.

Thanks to you. You explained my thoughts better than I could.

> > Change flags in make.conf for generic compatible ones, compile a new
> > kernel (I used genkernel for the migration, and compiled a specific
> > kernel for the new machine later), emerge -e world and transfer the
> > system (I used rsync, and had to deal with some network issues),
> > everything worked (after some fine tunning for the new hardware) for
> > me.
> 
> Yeah, but that way you're doing emerge -e world twice.  One on the
> old system, and one on the new system (to optimize for the specific
> CPU again; -march=native).  It's usually faster to install from
> scratch and only transfer your setting to the new system.

You are right too. IMHO, a new install is what you have to do for
a such occasionally hardware upgrade. 

Note the "emerge -e world" is not what we need here as it will leave
broken system packages (the system won't boot on the new processor).
The '-e' option looks for the USE flags only.

We are supposed to know what we do with Gentoo. Having hardware specific
options makes the distribution in a possibly jail. Nevertheless, Gentoo
and Linux offer all generic options to ensure x86 processor-like
migrations.

-- 
Nicolas Sebrecht

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: move instalation from one system to another one.

[Stroller]

On 31 Jul 2008, at 19:50, Nicolas Sebrecht wrote:
> ...
> Note the "emerge -e world" is not what we need here as it will leave
> broken system packages (the system won't boot on the new processor).
> The '-e' option looks for the USE flags only.

 From `man emerge`

        --emptytree (-e)
               Reinstalls all world packages and their dependencies ...

(don't be confused by the next sentence. I am sure it just means to  
say "uses the currently set USE flags").

...
        --newuse (-N)
               Tells emerge to include installed packages where USE  
flags  have
               changed since compilation.


Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: move instalation from one system to another one.

[Daniel da Veiga]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Stroller
<stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On 31 Jul 2008, at 19:50, Nicolas Sebrecht wrote:
>>
>> ...
>> Note the "emerge -e world" is not what we need here as it will leave
>> broken system packages (the system won't boot on the new processor).
>> The '-e' option looks for the USE flags only.
>
> From `man emerge`
>
>       --emptytree (-e)
>              Reinstalls all world packages and their dependencies ...
>

Nicolas, Stroller (and the man page) is right...

As "system" is part of "world", an "emerge -e world" would recompile
every single package, along with all dependencies, a full system
recompile, if you, for instance, change your CFLAGs to a generic one
before it, at the end your system would be prepared to be used with a
different processor.

-- 
Daniel da Veiga

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: move instalation from one system to another one.

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Donnerstag, 31. Juli 2008, Daniel da Veiga wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Stroller
>
> <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
> > On 31 Jul 2008, at 19:50, Nicolas Sebrecht wrote:
> >> ...
> >> Note the "emerge -e world" is not what we need here as it will leave
> >> broken system packages (the system won't boot on the new processor).
> >> The '-e' option looks for the USE flags only.
> >
> > From `man emerge`
> >
> >       --emptytree (-e)
> >              Reinstalls all world packages and their dependencies ...
>
> Nicolas, Stroller (and the man page) is right...
>
> As "system" is part of "world", an "emerge -e world" would recompile
> every single package, along with all dependencies, a full system
> recompile, if you, for instance, change your CFLAGs to a generic one
> before it, at the end your system would be prepared to be used with a
> different processor.

not anymore. system was taken out of world.

http://marc.info/?l=gentoo-dev&m=121607297615623&w=2

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: move instalation from one system to another one.

[Daniel da Veiga]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 7:09 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
<volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> wrote:
> On Donnerstag, 31. Juli 2008, Daniel da Veiga wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Stroller
>>
>> <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
>> > On 31 Jul 2008, at 19:50, Nicolas Sebrecht wrote:
>> >> ...
>> >> Note the "emerge -e world" is not what we need here as it will leave
>> >> broken system packages (the system won't boot on the new processor).
>> >> The '-e' option looks for the USE flags only.
>> >
>> > From `man emerge`
>> >
>> >       --emptytree (-e)
>> >              Reinstalls all world packages and their dependencies ...
>>
>> Nicolas, Stroller (and the man page) is right...
>>
>> As "system" is part of "world", an "emerge -e world" would recompile
>> every single package, along with all dependencies, a full system
>> recompile, if you, for instance, change your CFLAGs to a generic one
>> before it, at the end your system would be prepared to be used with a
>> different processor.
>
> not anymore. system was taken out of world.
>
> http://marc.info/?l=gentoo-dev&m=121607297615623&w=2
>

I see, so you need a "emerge -e system" in order to "emerge -e world"
properly and make sure changes affect all packages.

One more thing to keep note next time I transfer my system...

-- 
Daniel da Veiga

[gentoo-user] Re: move instalation from one system to another one.

[ABCD]

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Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> not anymore. system was taken out of world.
> 
> http://marc.info/?l=gentoo-dev&m=121607297615623&w=2

That is only true if you are using >=sys-apps/portage-2.2_alpha (that
is, the current ~arch version)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: move instalation from one system to another one.

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Freitag, 1. August 2008, ABCD wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > not anymore. system was taken out of world.
> >
> > http://marc.info/?l=gentoo-dev&m=121607297615623&w=2
>
> That is only true if you are using >=sys-apps/portage-2.2_alpha (that
> is, the current ~arch version)

looks like.

[gentoo-user] Re: move instalation from one system to another one.

[Platoali]

On Jumee 11 Mordad 1387, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Freitag, 1. August 2008, ABCD wrote:
> > Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > > not anymore. system was taken out of world.
> > >
> > > http://marc.info/?l=gentoo-dev&m=121607297615623&w=2
> >
> > That is only true if you are using >=sys-apps/portage-2.2_alpha (that
> > is, the current ~arch version)
>
> looks like.
 
Thanks everyone for comments. I'm writing this on my new laptop. I rebuilt the 
system on old laptop with CFLAGS="-march=i686 -O2 -pipe" before the moving 
the binary to the new laptop.

I've a usable but unstable Desktop on the new system. Some application like 
stella don't load and others crashing at random times.  I'm sure the system 
will be stable when I recompile all the other packages with the new flags.


Thanks anyone
Platoali