Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by orky7 5341 days ago
i am really curious suppose i have machine X everything configured and i have a new machine Y same architecture(let 64bit) can i port from one two another.
1 comments

I am wondering if it would be as easy as doing a dd from the old disk to an external an then to an extended partition in the new machine HD...
You could if the new machine was very similar to the old one. In practice, the new hardware is better in some ways, so just copying everything will either not work at all or only work sub-optimally.

OTOH, your personal application configuration files (editor, window manager, etc.) can nearly always be copied as-is without causing any problems. Some people have been copying the same .emacs from machine to machine for years, if not decades, upgrading Emacs all the while.