Copying system to another computer?

threadbare · n00b Joined: 07 Nov 2004 Posts: 3 Location: Poland

Is it possible to copy files from my gentoo partition to another computer [and modify fstab, compile new kernel, install grub etc.] and have working system? In other words, are packages compiled for one x86 processor just OPTIMIZED for it, or are they using some specific processor instructions that won't work on another? I'd then change my CFLAGS and recompile the packages.
(I want to copy my system from AthlonXP to Pentium III).

Volt3r · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:47 pm Post subject:

You must firstly recompile all packages for PIII, becouse if you dont do this, you will propably have a lot of segv or even crashes on new machine.

iamlarryboy · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:42 pm Post subject:

check your make.conf. If it has this line:
CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
it will not run on the p3. However, if it looks like this:
CFLAGS="-mcpu=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
there is a good chance it will run albet not very optimized.
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dohko · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:23 pm Post subject:

If you have optmized your system to an Athlon processor using the march flag, some things may have been (they certainly have) compiled using AMD's specific instruction set, which will certainly fail on a pentiumIII.

Even if you had optmized it using mcpu=athlon-xp instead of march, I'd still wonder if it would work perfectly. I know that mcpu keeps backward compatibility by not using instructions that are specific to a newer family of processors. However, I wonder if mcpu=pentium3 and mcpu=athlon-xp are 100% compatible. I think they are since AMD's instruction set is compatible with intel's, but I'm not entirely sure.