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I'm planning to buy a new SSD for my laptop and playing ahead. Is there a way to move my current installation of Ubuntu (on regular HD) to the SSD without reinstalling from scratch?

Seb
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    Depending on the size of the SSD compared to the old HDD, and whether Ubuntu is the only OS installed, and whether you have a way to connect both drives to a single machine (eg USB drive caddy), you may be able to do a bit-for-bit copy and expand the partitions. Otherwise, make a list of installed packages, copy /home (and any relevant changes you made in /etc) somewhere, and reinstall. Restoring /home and installing the packages from the list should get a functionally identical system. Posted as a comment because an answer should really have more detail. – Darael Nov 20 '15 at 11:40
  • " without reinstalling from scratch" w h y. @dareal and how about reconfiguring for instance... oh let's say "trim"? And some other stuff. – Rinzwind Nov 20 '15 at 11:42
  • only one OS, two drives connected (want to replace optical drive) of the same size to the same machine – Seb Nov 20 '15 at 11:44
  • @Rinzwind first of all, it's ae, not ea in my username. Tab-completion will help with that. Secondly, I was only talking about moving the system as-is. SSD-related changes, like enabling TRIM/discard, have to be done manually if not reinstalling, and I never claimed otherwise. – Darael Nov 20 '15 at 12:24
  • No but your comment made it look easier than it is ;-) I would just re-install. It is far easier than any other method :P – Rinzwind Nov 20 '15 at 12:26
  • @Seb you'll need a live USB, if you don't have an optical drive (or won't, with the new drive connected), but if the two drives really are exactly the same size it should be safe to do a bit-for-bit copy: boot the live system and sudo dd bs=4M if=/dev/whicheverdeviceisthehdd of=/dev/sdddevice. Be aware that as @Rinzwind notes, this won't enable SSD optimisations. You'll need to look those up and do them manually. You should also disconnect the old drive before rebooting, to be sure you have the right copy of the system active, then hotplug it to reformat. – Darael Nov 20 '15 at 12:30

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