Cargo Cult sysadmining

[Dave Ihnat]

Once, long ago--actually, on Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 11:28:09AM -0400--John Aldrich (jmaldrich at yahoo.com) said:
> Yes...but if your Linux box is set up with a generic, modular
> kernel, chances are you won't have to re-install Linux, where, as
> you point out, with Windows, you'll have to do a "repair" install,
> at a minimum.

No argument; just pointing out that the vast majority of the time, changing
even a MoBo won't lose data and won't require reinstallation of any
applications.

> At worst, you'll have to try and re-install on another disk and
> re-install all your apps and copy your data over.

But that is the worst case--and it virtually never happens from changing a
major component such as a MoBo or disk controller, as you'd posited, as
long as the system was otherwise healthy.

> Linux, properly set up, doesn't have that issue. :D

A generic Linux installation seems better at detecting hardware changes
"on the fly".  Windows doesn't really check for major component changes
when booting (although their licensing cr*p may check if the system
successfully boots--it certainly does after a repair install).  The repair
reinstallation is, generally, only necessary to force it to select a
new HAL (or maybe reconfigure the current one--haven't really cared to
dig that deeply into it.)

Cheers,
--
	Dave Ihnat
	dihnat at dminet.com