Very Computer

Hi,

I have a very slow (166MHz) motherboard and thought it was about time I
got a faster one.
The question is now, can I just replace the motherboard ?
Will Linux reconfigure my current installation without destroying it?
... or should I put a fresh Linux install and start all over again ?

Note, I have a dual boot configuration with Win98.
Can Windows handle this too ?

Rolf

and said:

Quote:> I have a very slow (166MHz) motherboard and thought it was about time
> I got a faster one.  The question is now, can I just replace the
> motherboard ?  Will Linux reconfigure my current installation without
> destroying it?

You neglected to mention which distro you're using.  This makes a
difference!  Most Redhat, SuSE, and Mandrake installations will check
for new hardware on startup and (try to) fix everything automagically.
It usually works.  If you built a custom kernel, you will probably find
that your IDE disks are stuck in "bonehead mode" after you switch
motherboards.  This is annoying; you'll have to recompile your kernel
with support for the new motherboard's IDE chipset--but that takes less
than 15 minutes.

Quote:> ... or should I put a fresh Linux install and start all over again ?

Not necessary.  Worst case is you'll have to recompile your kernel to
include support for all the new stuff on your new motherboard.

Quote:> I have a dual boot configuration with Win98.  Can Windows handle this
> too ?

Wrong newsgroup to ask 'Doze9x questions in.  IME, 'Doze does *not*
handle hardware changes gracefully at all.  Figure on 4 or 5 reboots and
6 or 7 installations of various 'Doze kernel modules.  If your 'Doze9x
hasn't been reinstalled in the last year, it's probably time to
reinstall it anyway to get rid of all the cruft.  HTH,

--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin /
http://www.brainbench.com     /  "He is a rhythmic movement of the
-----------------------------/    penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL

HTH,

Thanks for your "tainted" answer.

I am not "in" kernel building.
I am using RH9 and I am very happy with it. I keep W98 alive for praktical
purposes (taxes and stuf that are only written for wdoze...no choice you
see) Just so you know, I just successfully installed a PCTV card on Linux.
I tried to on W..ws but I think I broke my finger on the reset button. At
least I got a RSI finger now and it still does'nt work !

... this was the last time, I won't use the "W" here word again, I
promise.

I hope you're right about the not-installing-a-fresh-RH9.
I know that from W...(oeps)
Not that it matters that much, but else I have to finetune and update it
all over again.

thanks again,

Rolf

Quote:> [lots of good advice]

I'd just add that I would probably turn off the graphical login as well
(set initdefault to 3 instead of 5 in /etc/inittab) since the
graphics on the new motherboard probably won't be compatible with the
old drivers, and having X sitting there trying unsuccessfully to start
up is an unnecessary distraction.

It's really not that big deal.  It'll try to start for about 10 seconds
and then quit.

I dual boot RH9 and XP. I installed a new MSI motherboard a couple of
weeks ago and Windows absolutely sh#$ itself. I had to reinstall it. RH9
took it all in its stride and simply reconfigured itself on the first boot
(all except the onboard sound chip for which I had to install ALSA).

If you have important tax or other important stuff in your Windows
partition (I don't think its evil to have one) I recomend you back it up,
although you may be able to retrieve it by mounting your fat32 partition
in Linux and shifting the data over b4 you reinstall.

HTH

Adam

--
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots"

Quote:> I have a very slow (166MHz) motherboard and thought it was about time I
> got a faster one.
> The question is now, can I just replace the motherboard ?
> Will Linux reconfigure my current installation without destroying it?
> ... or should I put a fresh Linux install and start all over again ?

   You can replace the motherboard and reasonably expect Linux to work.
However, you might want to go to the newest stable kernel to make sure
that you have hardware support for the new board.

Quote:> Note, I have a dual boot configuration with Win98.
> Can Windows handle this too ?

   According to Microsoft, there are motherboard resources that 9x can
only detect during installation.  However, I've swapped various mobos with
Win98, let it install drivers for a billion things, and reinstalled
peripheral drivers, and had it work great.  YMMV.

steve

You should consider dumping your Win98 partition altogether and get a copy
of Win4Lin. Win4Lin will allow you to run Win98 on top of Linux so you
won't have to worry about getting Win98 drivers for you new motherboard.

Quote:>[. . .]
>Not necessary.  Worst case is you'll have to recompile your kernel to
>include support for all the new stuff on your new motherboard.

        Since the original poster is using Red Hat 9, this defaults to using
Grub for the boot loader, which usually doesn't need anything special to be
done after a hardware change; but just in case the original poster is using
Lilo, in some cases you have to boot from an emergency boot disk (in Red Hat
6.x and 7.x the installation CD was marginally good enough for this; don't
know about 8.x or 9.x) and fix Lilo.  The reason for this is that different
motherboards can have different opinions about the cylinder/head/sector
geometry of a hard drive.  This doesn't bother Linux itself, but does bother
Lilo, which depends upon the BIOS.  (So far, even though GRUB also depends
upon the BIOS, it seems to be smart enough to figure out a way around this.)

--
Lucius Chiaraviglio

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