Mark Knecht wrote: > Your world file should do that for the Gentoo stuff, with limitations. > It assumes you have nothing on the system that was created outside of > normal portage/emerge. It would probably duplicate the latest kernel > tree but wouldn't build it, and wouldn't copy old kernels that aren't > in portage if you still have them on the system. It isn't going to get > virtual environment, be they python or things like virtualbox if you > use those. > > I suspect you'll get a 'working' machine (I've done it) but you will > still have a lot of stuff to transfer by hand or from backups which > you really should do anyway. > > HTH, > Mark >
I recently tried this in a chroot starting with a stage3 tarball. At first, I tried unpacking the tarball, copying over /etc and the world file. I also copied over the binaries and tried using -k. It was a disaster. I ran into hard blacks that I never was able to get around not to mention emerge complaining about USE flags and such. Then I tried unpacking a tarball and just updating the tarball itself with no changes on my part, not even the profile, it to ran into hard blocks just not as many of them. In the 2nd attempt, I think something was off in the tarball itself. When you unpack a tarball and try to sync and update it and it fails, something is wrong somewhere. It's not covered in the install handbook either. In theory, one should be able to unpack a tarball, copy over /etc and the world file and do a emerge -e world. If one copies over the binaries from the old system, one could add a -k to speed up the process, for most if not all packages. Thing is, theory meets real world real fast and it gets ugly. After multiple attempts, I ended up coping my original OS over and that worked better and MUCH faster. Way back in the day, I would boot a rescue disk of some type, mount both drives and then copy everything over, excluding /home if it is on a separate drive or any others that shouldn't be transferred. Once that is done, chroot in and install grub, the old original one not grub2. Once that is done, shutdown and remove old drive, plug new drive into old port and then power up, crossing fingers and toes. It worked first time generally. I have NOT done that with grub2. It may work the same, it may not. Grub2 is a bit of a beast. Theory, should work. In my real world experience, it does not. Coping tends to work if you do it all right. Just my thoughts. Dale :-) :-)
