Score:1

Transfer old BIOS ubuntu to new UEFI machine?

br flag

If I install from scratch on a new UEFI machine, can I just copy everything except /boot from an older machine being replaced? Or is there BIOS and kernel related stuff somewhere outside of /boot that I'd want to avoid clobbering? (both are running 20.4). (Perhaps /etc/default or someplace like that?)

in flag
Copying "everything" is a recipe for disaster. You can copy your `/home` directory for the most part (minus the cache directories, perhaps), but it would be better in the long run to re-install the applications that you use on a regular basis, and – if necessary – copy the configuration files over from the previous installation. 1:1 copies are often invitations for chaos when going to different hardware
user10489 avatar
in flag
If you are moving the hard drive, it makes sense to convert it to uefi. But it would probably actually be faster to reinstall linux from scratch than copy it.
C.S.Cameron avatar
cn flag
You can use GParted to copy/paste the old root partition to the new drive. GRUB, fstab, etc will need to be updated.
Score:2
sa flag

If you install Ubuntu from scratch on a new computer with UEFI firmware, you can't just copy everything except /boot from an older BIOS computer being replaced. You can actually clone an Ubuntu installation from an old BIOS computer to a new UEFI computer, but there are many different steps to follow to get the old Ubuntu that was installed in BIOS mode to work on a UEFI computer, and you should expect to encounter some unexpected problems if you are following the instructions from a tutorial. If your time is valuable there doesn't seem to be any point to doing it the hard way in this case, considering it takes only about a half hour to install Ubuntu from scratch on a new computer.

If something goes wrong when installing Ubuntu from scratch on a new computer, you can run the Boot-Repair application to troubleshoot the problem. Otherwise you're basically on your own if Ubuntu is unable to boot after cloning an Ubuntu installation from a BIOS computer to a UEFI computer, and you might have to reinstall Ubuntu anyway.

br flag
Maybe I should install from scratch and get a list of the packages on the old system and install them, but then see what files exist on the old system and not the new system and copy them. I've got stuff in way more places than just /home, software not in the repos I've build from scratch, etc.
karel avatar
sa flag
Try reading [this answer](https://askubuntu.com/a/1194241/) about what else besides the list of installed packages need to be backed up before reinstalling. Even if you decided not to reinstall Ubuntu, you should still backup these files before proceeding anyway.
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