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Existing SSD with Ubuntu into new X1C9

ng flag

I have bought a new X1 Carbon Gen 9 and want to put my existing SSD from a T460s, with Ubuntu installed on it into it.

When I first tried it then I did not get any Grub menu and I tried a lot of solutions to make it work, including boot-repair but nothing solved the issue so far.

Thinking a bit more about it made me question this approach. Because directly swapped it would, as far as I can work out, hold all the drivers and settings to work properly on the T460s - which probably won't work properly on the X1C9?

So would a better approach be to backup the Ubuntu installation and make a clean install on the X1C9 and then afterwards apply the backup?

If so which type of backup would be best? Timeshift can make a complete clone including applications, but in doing so would I not end up having the drivers for the T460s installed with the backup and hence be back where I started?

Alternatively I can use the default Ubuntu Deja-dup (or what it is called) but can I have this include installed applications, SSH keys etc?

Or is there a third option that I have not yet considered?

cn flag
I've done that a dozen times now and the only 2 things that are important: uefi and 3rd party driver for Graphics (ie. nvidia driver versus amd driver), The latter does not prevent booting but might run into trouble later during boot. "hold all the drivers and settings to work properly on the T460s - which probably won't work properly on the X1C9?" Linux always rebuilds the device system on each boot so EXCEPT for 3rd party drivers (that you should always remove when transferring) this is not an issue.
ng flag
Okay, that sounds like I should invest a little more time into trying to repair/install Grub with just the SSD swapped instead of going over a brand new install and re-creating it. To the best of my knowledge both laptops rung nvidia and not amd, so perhaps the installation will work perfectly once I get Grub sorted.
cn flag
Reinstall might be preferred though ;) I have my system nowadays set up such that I can reinstall within 20 minutes with almost zero downtime (I keep using the internet during an install) (ssd holds /, hdd holds /discworld with all my data and my default dirs like Desktop). No /home
oldfred avatar
cn flag
I also believe in reinstall, particularly if fixes take more than about an hour. But if UEFI install, you may just need the UEFI boot entry, or manually select drive entry as you will not have the "ubuntu" entry in UEFI until you add it. If old BIOS/MBR install, backup, reformat/repartitions using gpt and reinstall. Many very new systems are now UEFI only or UEFI class 3 which then do not even have a BIOS boot option.
ng flag
I ended up reinstalling, which wiped some of my data because I had both "/" and "/home" on the same partition. Most of it I will be able to recreate so no real issue. But I am glad that I reinstalled. Got it running without, but some functionality was not working correctly so went with re-install. Now everything works as it should and I just have to install some applications and re-create some data. I am sure this is the best solution long term, so thanks a lot for the recommendation.
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