I'm about to build my wife a new system. Her old one was an old P4 1.5 that I'm going to turn into a mail server. Is there an easy way to migrate her emails? She uses Evolution. I'm guessing I just need to save the inbox folder under /home/her/.evolution/mail/local/inbox.sbd.

What would happen if I just moved the harddrive to the new machine like it is? Would Ubuntu see the new system and load everything it needed?

You can go into your Inbox and do a Edit --> 'Select All Text' and save the Inbox as a mbox file. If you have many sub-folders in your Inbox, not so fun.

A better way is to just log in under her account and copy, paste, run the below line (make sure evolution is NOT running:
tar -cvpjf evolution_backup-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).tar.bz2 ~/.gconf/apps/evolution/ ~/.evolutionYou will end up with an evolution_backup-whateverthedateis.tar.bz file. That file will contain everything...account settings, mail, contacts.

When you get the new system setup (evolution installed), log in under her account, move the file to her home directory (not Desktop), then:
tar xvfj evolution_backup-whateverthedatis.tar.bzStart Evolution.


What would happen if I just moved the harddrive to the new machine like it is?
Would Ubuntu see the new system and load everything it needed?Ubuntu is pretty bloated from a kernel/module POV.
That can be an advantage in this case. As long as the architecture (ie. x86, x86_64, PPC) is the same, that should work fine.

If you are running your own recompiled kernel, the ride may be bumpy.

For the time being it's a moot point. The moboard I ordered from Tiger Direct arrived DOA. No post, beeps, or anything. I know the cpu is good, I pulled it from one of my other systems. I hope Tiger Direct is pretty good with RMAs.

been there and done that. lucky the mobo that i had was no longer available so i got an asus instead!! abit has really gone down hill

This one was a MSI pm8m3-v. Oh well, you get what you pay for. It was only 40 bucks. Should've went with the Asrock duel-vista.

a friend order an asrock, he has since replaced it twice. Just goes to show that when you get an egg there are always more around!!!

Speaking of migrations, let me throw this one out there without starting a new thread. I'm doing a fresh install, but a little differently. I've got 2 sata drives, a 120gig and an 80gig. Here's how I've set them up;

120gig -
20g -> /
5g -> swap
60g -> raid

80gig -
60g -> raid

Configured the 2 raids as a raid 1 and mounted it to /home for a running backup.

Should I lose one of those hd's, which is inevitable, how would I remount the existing /home to a new install? Just wanted to ask now BEFORE it happens.