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THG On Migrating To Linux
inphinity writes "The fine folks over at Tom's Hardware have posted an interesting guide titled Migrating from Windows to Linux. In the first of what will hopefully be several parts, they describe what steps to take to back up critical data and move to open-source apps. All in all, a fairly in-depth and comprehensive step-by-step guide. As a nice touch, they've even included a downloadable checklist for confused people."
Because their installers are more newbie friendly.
Debian installer isn't exactly tard^H^H^H^Huser friendly
Yes I know you only install once (or should), but MDK at least (not tried RH since v6) is alot more friendly to the novice user
Let me be the first of many to mention TheOpenCD. First switch to OSS under Windows. Once you're used to the apps, its easier to make the leap to a full Linux desktop.
I have dual-boot RH9/Win at work now and have not booted the Windows OS in 2 months. Most of what I need is:
Gnome
Evolution
OpenOffice
Isn't it better to try a livecd first? There are enough out there at the moment.
If you don't like it, then it's easier to switch back if you want to.
That's how I'm gonna try it anyway.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Then I don't think they should try Linux at all.
You're still thinking in terms of 'old linux'. There is no need to learn anything to install Mandrake - it does it automagically (although if you want to configure you can). Many normal Windows users who just use web+email don't want to spend time watching people use Linux and learning the system, yet they are the perfect market since they wouldn't miss any of the features on Windows that geeks like myself do miss (namely Flash MX, Photoshop and games). Let them install with no knowledge and learn to use at their own pace, don't force them to learn first thus convincing them to stick with what they know (Windows) because it's good enough and less effort.
nero is soooo yesterday. it's become a bloated piece of "ship it with every oem drive in existance", and add new trinket features and glitz but don't fix any of the bugs.
nero was once good, 3 years ago, when they were still hungry.
now it's rubbish.
k3b.
that's your nero under linux. burn cd data, cd audio, dvd data.
My first experience with Linux was with Debian aswell (when Woody was still Testing).
Because of the lack of GUI tools for every configuration I needed to make, I had to do it myself.
Through this course I learned a whole lot more about the internal workings of Debian and Linux distros in general.
So in my opinion, if you're not scared to try and learn something new, Debian is not that bad a choice.
Another nice side-effect was that I never felt more in controle over my PC then ever before.
Like Mentor said: "[...] Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... [...]"
This is my "switch" story: I just got a Dell Latitude C600 laptop. "Hey," I said to myself, "...why don't I try to install Linux on it?" So, I grabbed some RH 8.0 CD's that I had and set out to installing. The CD booted fine, I chose the standard workstation installation and off I went. When I got to the monitor / video card, I accepted the defaults and soon I was finished.
Upon reboot, the screen flashed several times at the text login prompt and finally, a teal box with garbled characters appeared in the middle of the screen. Now, being an avid /. reader, I knew that this was a problem with my X configuration. So, I hit enter to get out of the garbled box, logged on as root and edited my XF86Config file with some suggestions from a forum that I found after searching Google. I typed "startx" and boom...I was in!
So far, you would have lost the average user at the login prompt. I admit, installing on a laptop isn't always easy, but you shouldn't have to edit config files to change the "r128" to "vesa". [Relax, I'm venting here.]
The second problem I had was with the Proxim Orinoco Wireless card. No network. Card not detected. Not even a selection to add it under "Network Devices". This time, the "how-to" that I found didn't help. Nothing that I could do could make the card work. And to top it off, Proxim doesn't provide Linux drivers.
So I went with XP. One disc and everything worked.
My point is not that Windows is better than Linux, because believe me, I would rather have gone with Linux on my laptop. However, until it's easy to install (you know, just go through the prompts and most everything works), you're not going to get anyone to switch.
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Because of the lack of GUI tools for every configuration I needed to make, I had to do it myself.
Through this course I learned a whole lot more about the internal workings of Debian and Linux distros in general.
But that is the whole point. Most folks don't want or need to learn about the internal workings of their OS. They want to send email to the grandkids, print the pictures from their digital camera, browse the web, write letters etc.
Telling these folks that if they want to use Linux they have to become power users is equivalent to telling them to stay on Windows 98.
Even I am of two minds. I've been using Linux since 93. I love to play with it. I've done the whole build-a-system-without-a-distro thing, so I'm fairly comfortable with the OS.
When I sit down in front of it to do my day job however, I want it to just work. So, for my day job I use a specially tricked out (by the company I work for) RedHat 9 distro. Sure, I could have built it better myself, and even now I could spend some time and make it better. But
I think Linux as a hobby is great. The point made by the article is that Linux as a tool is important, and it different from Linux as a hobby.
THG writes: "Currently, no native Linux application will read the Access (.mdb) format."
He makes this statement and then never follows through with any suggestions for Window users looking to make the switch. It would have been nice if he put together a cookbook recipe for transitioning Databases from Access to say a MySQL+Rekall solution.
While there's plenty of advice out there about migrating your data, (the easy part, IMHO) I have not seen any recipies for converting your forms and reports... (And as we're talking Desktop apps here, using MySQL as a backend with Access on the frontend isn't relevent)
Is there any way other than recreating the forms/reports?
I'm sure many Window users want to know.. and while I'm a seasoned Linux (as Desktop) user without any reliance on Access myself, I know of businesses that might convert if not for the Access hurdle. (So far I have had no useful advice for them)
--Aaron Greenberg
It already exists. It's called knoppix and there are instructions that allow you to turn it into a full blown system.
Do not read this
If it's learning your interested in, and you have A) a reasonably powerful machine and B) Broadband, I recommend Gentoo, you have to do everything by keyboard, but the docs are just outstanding in clarity and logic.
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
unlike all Windows based (*) burner software, but like all good linux software : They don't try to reinvent the wheel. K3B is just a simple (but really wonderful) newbie-friendly interface, that use the power of kickass application like cdparanoia, cdrecord, ...
so you have all the niceties this program implements.
The only thing I miss :
- to be able to force a data compare for every imaginable step (like DiscJuggler does on Windows)
- multiple session (no ! not mutlisession CDs, but multiple K3B running on several diffrent burners)
- support for non standart formats (.NRG, .CDI, ...) the net is full of small tools that can do xyz->CUEBIN conversion. to bad K3B doesn't support them automatically in it's interface.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
If you must use RedHat it's really spelled F-E-D-O-R-A
(Remembering to avoid all products labeled 'Enterprise')
One might argue that building your own is most profitable.
I have to agree completely. I've been using Linux on and off for about 6 years now. I started off by purchasing a copy of Red Hat v5.2. At the time Red Hat was perfect for me. I had no idea what "dude just read the man page" meant or even how to untar an archive. I've only started using Gentoo for about 3 months now and I feel as if my knowledge of Linux has grown exponentially. This is mainly attributed to the fact that I've never had to compile a kernel before and I've never had a distro that didn't install a ftp client by default.
That seemed a little scary at first, but I was over-joyed when I ran top after my first boot and saw how little mem was in use (around 30Mb I think)
If you really want to get your hands dirty and figure out whats _really_ going on under the hood, I would use Gentoo because you really have to learn everything. There is no choice!
Disclaimer to all Linux beginners: If you have never used Linux before and aren't willing to spend hours of research time to get a seemingly simple thing to work, I would suggest using Red Hat Fedora or Mandrake. But if you've used those and want to take the next step, I say dive in all the way and give Gentoo a try.
Arrgh! Yet another guide to Linux that seems mostly to say "And then go and read this long and obscure web page to try and figure out if your hardware will work".
My biggest criticism is that the article, like pretty much every similar one, does not warn the unsuspecting beginner that there is a significant likelihood that there will be at least one insoluble problem.
Even though things have improved greatly in Linux installation, new people need to understand that one of either their video card, palm sync, scanner, or networking will not work out of the box, and that tracking down a solution can take hours or days.
The last thing that Linux needs is more people throwing up their hands in despair after ten hours of an install gone horribly wrong. It's better to warn them right up front that things are still quite a bit less reliable than a Windows install.
Three Squirrels
I did this at home. The computer came with Win98 at the time, I installed RedHat as dual boot, and for the first week or two my wife kept rebooting now and then, but very quickly she preferred to leave it running Linux, and that was it. This machine is now happily running Mandrake, with tipical uptimes of months.
... that's all fine but does it have bar graphs?
I don't know. I didn't make it to the end. Halfway down the first page I realized this guy probably doesn't know what he is talking about. The page says "Most modern operating systems, which include Linux, are composed of two parts: a small central piece called the "kernel" and a larger piece that has the applications and drivers." Well, first of all, drivers are part of the kernel. So neither did he make the distinction right, nor did he tell us why it is really important. I have often seen this distinction made to explain a bit about the naming and version numbering. He didn't even make that point. And he continues to explain "Linux distributions have pretty much the same kernel, but differ in the applications they offer." Which is not entirely true either. At least a large part of the applications will be the same between two distributions. And the kernel itself will usually not be exactly the same, so in the end the kernel might be as different as everything else.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
THG seems to be very very carefull about everything. I have migrated my share of Windows boxes to Linux but never done as carefull and systematic job of preparing for the install. Yet I have been sorry I missed any one of the steps suggested so I say: good job!
anybody with mission critical data will probably want to use this guide, a home user converting his old desktop just to see how he likes it can probably find a much simpler guide.
Me.
Of course, the more pages the more ad impressions.
Speaking of which, anyone else find it interesting that every page had a big ass windowsxp ad on it?
What is with the restriction on filenames (in the migration checklist)?
I have not made the transition to Linux (and I'm not planning to for a while longer), but I have a lot of files named with upper and lower case and spaces, and when I play on Linux, I don't have any problem with them. I am not changing any filename I don't have to (unless there is a character allowed by Windows which is not allowed by Unix - probably true - but I couldn't find a reference). I'm not aware of any reason not to have spaces in Unix. The command line still works using quotes and/or tab completion and any modern file manager is going to work fine too. If a certain application doesn't work opening the file, I can find that out later and rename the file then.
This kind of advice is just hindering people from switching by putting another obstacle in front of them. What for?
Dara