My Experience of Moving Ubuntu 11.04 from One Notebook to Another

Have you ever attempted to move an OS install from one PC to another? I am sure many of you have, and for those who are all too familiar with the process, you’re likely aware of the headaches that can ensue. Different PCs means different hardware, and where any OS is concerned, the chance of a non-bootable OS is sometimes an all-too-real caveat.

It’s been a while since I’ve had to do something like this, but over the weekend, due to what seems like my netbook giving up the ghost, I moved my Ubuntu 11.04 install over to a different notebook that I managed to get working after it being “dead” for well over a year. Yes, my two notebooks apparently switched positions.

The hardware differences between the netbook and notebook are rather stark. The netbook, an HP dv2, includes an AMD CPU, GPU and Broadcom wireless, while the notebook, a Gateway UC7807u, uses an Intel CPU, GPU and, ahem, wireless. Prior to swapping the hard drive over, I had prepared to install a fresh Ubuntu, just to save potential hassle. But, once done, I had to do no such thing.

After booting up on the replacement notebook for the first time, Ubuntu booted into the desktop like nothing was ever changed. The Unity desktop environment worked, as did the audio, wireless networking, and everything else hardware-wise. To reiterate, the transition went perfectly, without me having to change a single thing.

I admit, the fact that the transition was so seamless confuses me. Moving from one CPU vendor/architecture to another is no big deal, but Ubuntu even handled the change of the GPUs (from Radeon to Intel) and wireless (Broadcom to Intel) like it was nothing. At the first boot on the swapped notebook, I loaded up a 720p YouTube video and it ran just fine. In fact, the performance difference compared to the netbook is enormous. Unity as a whole is ultra-responsive, and on the netbook, I was lucky to handle 480p video half of the time, much less 720p.

While I have moved over installs like this in the past with minor issues, this was the first time ever where I didn’t have to change a single thing. I am not about to insinuate that this result will be the same for everyone, but it should be a good chunk, given the stark change in hardware I made.