Hi all,
I just bought a new motherboard and I’ll be buying a new CPU, too. The current one is a gigabyte 520i AC AM4 with an AMD Ryzen 7 5700G on it currently. The new one is also gigabyte 550M AM4 and the new processor is Ryzen 7 5800xt. I currently dual boot Cachy OS and windows 11. Each has their own boot partition and I use grub. I’m going to bring everything over from the old mobo except the cpu that will stay on it since it’s going into another pc. Meaning, I’m bringing my SSDs and all that. Will I need to reinstall (please say no lol)? Will it be just plug and play or will I need to fiddle with a live environment to chroot?
Please let me know if you need more info. Thank you in advance.
You should always reinstall when switching motherboard. There’s so many drivers that could possible make a problem. Unless you switch between 2 totally identical motherboards… Then give that a go…
It might but I wouldn’t. Every weird problem in the future is gonna make you wonder if it’s because of that. Now what I would do is get another hard drive, install to it, and copy things over. But basically leave the original one alone. My 2¢
Every weird problem in the future is gonna make you wonder if it’s because of that.
Pretty much what I’ve realised about doing anything weird with my system. I want a peaceful life.
Depending on how grub was installed, you might need to boot a live environment just to tell your new mobo about it. You can skip chrooting if your live media has
efibootmgrand you can figure out how to use it, but if that fails you can always chroot and install grub fresh.Also, it might just work.
As others have said, no for the Linux partition; it’s the same arch, socket type, etc. CachyOS’s kernel probably contains everything you need.
For the Windows partition you might have problems though. Iirc Windows connects licences to motherboards, to prevent disk cloning to circumvent buying licences, so Windows may think you’ve cloned your drive to pirate Windows. I’ve never tried secure boot but I know W11 requires TPM too so if you’ve got secure boot you should look into how to switch to a new motherboard on Windows.
If windows crying about a license is my biggest issue then I think I’m ok with that. I am more worried about efi partitions since I dualboot
massgrave.dev has you covered if windows throws a fit
iirc they track the hardware changes and do allow motherboard swaps, but it may be safer to swap cpu first, then motherboard
Most distributions, no.
Gentoo, yes.
Gentoo—depends on your CFLAGS, specifically
-march. You may have to change it to a more generic setting and rebuild the system set, plus build additional drivers into your kernel if you have a custom one, before you can safely proceed with the move.In other words, you can get away without reinstalling, but it’s a bit more involved because you may need to undo some customization first.
probably not, I move SSDs between computers all the time and linux always just works
very different story for windows installations though 🤮
I’ve honestly had a lot of luck booting a Windows SSD on different computers.
I love your comment. So reassuring. Lol. I HAVE moved SSDs before where it was only Linux, in this case I’m worried about it because it’s a dualboot
nvidia complicates this, as always
Drivers in kernel, so it should generally work. Except if you have hw-specific configs around, but that’s something that you did then.
I don’t really do crazy low level stuff on my machine. Just gaming and programming.
I moved my Fedora SSD from an Intel 8th gen laptop to an AMD Zen4 laptop with 0 issue and 0 config. So… you’re probably fine.
I have before move SSDs and had no issues actually, now that you mentioned it. Lol. But this is a different case because I dualboot and I’m technically moving two OSs to a new mobo.
In general it shouldn’t. You might need to install some new drivers for the new chipset but in itself the system should work. Especially since nowadays kernels are shipped with a lot of stuff and I’m guessing you’re not compiling yours
Regarding messing up with live environment, I don’t remember if GPT is enough for UEFI to load your bootloader or maybe you might need to install something in thereHighly unlikely. These days, disk space is so cheap that all manner of drivers are provided whether you need them or not. Worst case, you should still be able to boot recovery mode or chroot, as you mentioned.
Just make sure that the disk and boot configuration is the same (uefi, sata, secure boot), else both Windows and Linux may have issues finding their boot files.
So, I’m guessing I’ll need to figure out the exact paths for both boot partitions for both OSs? That way in case I needed to manually add them I will?
No, just match the settings. There’s really no good way to recover if it’s broken; I’ve never been successful at fixing it and I always end up reinstalling. If the settings match you won’t have to do anything at all.
What do you mean by match the settings? What settings?
make sure that the disk and boot configuration is the same (uefi, sata, secure boot)
Great advice in the comments already, I’ll just recommend that you familiarise yourself with the rescue boot of a live disc of your distro.
If things go weird with thr move you can boot the live in rescue mode, mount your disks and fix fstab, or even redo the initrd . Don’t wait until you need it
Yup. I’m familiar with that already. CachyOS has a great documentation about it. Appreciate you :)
Reinstall shouldn’t be required but you’ll likely need to build a new initrd to ensure the boot process has the right drivers.
Ok, that sounds a bit better. I’ll need to learn the building of initrd. Off to searching. Thank you.
This is actually not even necessary. The systems are similar enough it’ll just work. I have recently swapped an SSD from a laptop to a newer model with CachyOS, and that was more of a generational jump in terms of cpu and other hardware.
But CachyOS has a quirk. Linux systems specify which partitions are mounted to which directories in the /etc/fstab file. Unfortunately, the boot partition is specified using a device name and not a UUID. this is problematic when switching an SSD from a system to another as this may very well change device names. It did for me and I then had to rescue boot + chroot to fix it.
The fix, if done before, is trivial: edit the line for /boot in that file to start with UUID= (followed by the actual UUID of the partition) instead of with /dev/nvme0n1p1 or whatever the current device name is. Google should be able to tell you how to find the UUID of your boot partition.
Some people keep saying that efi boots are written somewhere in an NVRAM on the motherboard and changing it will require rewriting the partition back on the new mobo. I honestly couldn’t care less if I lost the windows partition (it’s just a “just in case I need windows thing), but it’s the Cachy os install is what I’m worried most about. I’ve had this same install for over a year now and it has a ton of stuff I like. I do have a full dejadup back up on another drive, but still a reinstall would be painful. Here is to hoping it’s not that bad.
Like you said, they’re extremely similar (I actually made sure of that). Same socket, same brand and same cpus technology and generation.
If that is necessary depends on your BIOS/MoBo. I did have to on mine. But the effort for a normal CachyOS install is t really like 5 minutes: boot into live iso, enter ‘cachy-chroot’ or whatever the command is, follow instructions on screen. Then just reinstall grub and/or kernel (which regenerates initramfs). There’s a wiki entry and pinned posts in discord for this whole thing. Ask in discord if you get stuck, they are incredibly responsive and helpful.
Once you’ve done it, you’ll notice it’s really no big deal. Btw. “Losing” your Linux install is very hard. It’s not as fragile as Windows. You can bork things, but they can usually be un-borked as well. The only real way is fully deleting partitions or their contents, which you can’t just do accidentally.
Especially just moving it to a new host can’t break it, you just need to get it to boot. Once you know how, it’s like 5 minutes. You can take the drive from a 20 year old PC, pop it into a modern system and it’ll work fine (assuming the system is semi-updated). Windows has a hard time moving to a different MoBo or platform. Linux doesn’t care. Drivers aren’t ‘installed’ like they are in Windows. They are just in the kernel available to be used. Almost everything is detected fresh on every boot, making this incredibly robust. As I said, you might just have to fiddle a bit to get it to boot, once it does, it’ll just work fine.
FYI if you use partition types fstab and root= are no longer needed.
I only have one entry in there, which is for /boot. The others are implicit anyway since I’m using ZFS. The boot entry is needed afaik, as there are multiple efi-type partitions in the system.
Honestly, probably no. You’re switching to something with the same CPU generation and micro architecture, and the boards are by the same manufacturer with the same mobo chipset generation (both 5xx). It should be plug and play.
The only major change I can see the old CPU has an iGPU, while the new one doesn’t, meaning that you won’t be able to use the video port built into your motherboard, only the ports on your GPU. I’m guessing you probably weren’t using that HDMI port in the first place, so it’s probably non-issue.
EDIT: There is a small chance you’ll have to change your fstab depending on how it’s configured; if it’s done by drive UUID, it won’t be a problem.
I’ve never used the iGPU on my old CPU. I just never needed it. And yes, I purposefully bought the same CPU generation and the same socket and manufacturer mobo, JUST to avoid this type of issue. Also, I don’t see the need to spend double the money if AM4 and 5th Gen AMD has been working fantastically for me.
There is a small chance you’ll have to change your fstab depending on how it’s configured; if it’s done by drive UUID, it won’t be a problem.
This is the part that worries me the most. I don’t know much about this whole UUID stuff (I’ll learn of course). I HAVE moved ssds between machines before without an issue, but that was all Linux. This time it’s a dualboot
Highly doubtful since it’s AMD to AMD.
I’m not too worried about the architecture more than I am about the boot partitions getting messed up. Will see. I’ll actually post about it here when it’s all done.
Honestly, even AMD to Intel would probably go mostly fine, considering the monolithic nature of the kernel and it having most drivers built in.
You’d probably want to make sure you have the Intel firmware package installed and make sure to remove configs specific to AMD stuff, like power management configs and kernel parameters, but it would still most likely boot.
For your linux partition you’d probably just need to install new drivers. I’ve popped my boot drive into a bunch of different pcs with no issue.
Your windows partition might be weird, last i heard it assigns the activation to the motherboard serial number or something so you might have to redo the crack or provide your activation code again
I’m not worried about the license issue on windows. I actually do have the code saved up because I have always known that it ties it to the mobo.
Usually, you don’t need to bother much with drivers at all outside of Nvidia GPUs and Broadcom modems since the kernel is monolithic and contains most drivers.
On an ATX motherboard, I think it’s extremely rare for the ethernet chipset to require an out-of-kernel driver.
This is true, i didn’t read the part where he’s keeping everything except the motherboard/cpu. I’m used to switching out to random gpus LMAO
Some reviewers on Amazon even mentioned that it worked on Linux just fine.
