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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."
I was recommended Debian. (First linux install). Why is Red Hat/Mandrake better?
Hope I'm not opening up a can of worms here...
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
my compliments to the chef... er, writers! the guys at tom's have put together a good article there. to the previous reply: Mdk, RH, and Fedora are all considerably more "user-friendly" distributions. many of my friends dove in with Slackware or Debian and are extremely well versed in Linux now but for most people i still recommend RH or Mdk (i haven't tried Fedora yet)
A somewhat helpful article, but not too much meat and i hate clicking through so many pages during one article.
;)
i still maintain the best way to learn is to sit and watch a linux-savy friend do a few installs, ask questions, take notes, and keep them near when you try it for the first time. Sorry, but that's the best way
they've even included a downloadable checklist for confused people.
What if the confused people are too confused to understand how to download it?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Using screenshots such as these might not help convince Windows Users to switch : I do not mean to troll but I think Nero is quite unequaled under Linux, unless I missed something (which is possible since I switched to OSX)...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
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)
And dare i say it? Yes. Learn to use it before trying to install it....the knowledge gained from just using linux will be a great aid in learning to install it.
Use a live cd or friend's computer if you have to!
I especially liked the final note.
Until then, say goodbye to your Windows OS, because its doom is approaching.
I do fear that some readers would see this as a biased article with a statement like that though. Hopefully readers are aware of the THG's objective viewpoint in general.
... that's all fine but does it have bar graphs? Whenever I read anything at THG, my attention span flips over to "Goldfish" mode and I NEED the bar graphs! Nrrrgh! *twitch*
Hate me!
"This is a serious problem. We expect at least 80% of all windows users to move to Linux", said Steve Balmer, the CEO of Microsoft, at a hastily convened press conference. "This will be the beginning of the end of Windows"
When asked how Microsoft plans to respond to the situation, Mr Balmber replied: "We have our methods".
Meanwhile, Darl McBride, the C.E.O. of SCO today announced that the copyright tp the choosing a Linux distribution algorith belonged to them, and they would sue THG and any other users who followed THG advice over IP violation issues.
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I was very impressed with the way that they explain the differences between distros. I.e., same kernel/under the hood with different apps on top.
Although I am a diehard Debian user, I totally agree with the recommendation for RH, SUSE, or Mandrake. Personally, if I am helping the person migrate and doing the Linux install for them, I usually do Debian stable with GNOME or KDE backport, depending on the user's preferences. However, if they intend on doing it themselves I recommend RH, Mandrake or a Knopppix hard drive install.
I am also impressed with the way in which they specify which apps work best for certain things. I.e., Evolution for email, OOo for office productivity. There wasn't any "you need to choose from one of these 50 email clients and one of these 5 office suites."
Kudos to THG for a well thought out and well written article. Hopefully the rest of the articles in the series are as well written.
By putting so little on each individual page.
I would actually recommend Xandros. Pity that there isn't a downloadable version yet. They are coming out with one though. It'll probably be without the crossover office stuff.
IBM also published in yesterday's Red Book newsletter, a 9 steps program to learn how to migrate from Windows to Linux.
Windows-to-Linux Roadmap
As far as pure functionality goes, you can do anything in linux that you can with Nero. A lot of them are seperate tools, however there are a plethora of front ends that bring them all together. And if not, they script very easily.
"Damn... It's in this weird PDF file format... PDF... Um... Penguinne Data File? Argh!!! I have to have Linux running before I can install it now!"
Looking back, I was a waddling Linux basket case nightmare, and you guys spouting "RTFM" and slinging insults weren't exactly helpful either.
Best experience a noob could have. Thanks. ;-)
Today I know that Linux isn't just "good enough" or "free if your time is worthless". I didn't learn those lessons by someone daintily holding my hand and cooing nursery rhymes in my ears. I was subjected to inflamatory attacks and brutally senseless trolls.
I also learned that Linux doesn't mean you have to be a total geekwad that couldn't get laid even by a concrete mixer... Although I'm under no obligations either.
I learned everything a guy could ever hope to learn from the one true beacon of light and hope for all the world: Slashdot.
(No, seriously... no one put me up to this... What do you mean I've got something on my nose? Where?)
Mandrake 10.0 is the distribution I'd recommend to anyone! It is still community, hence a bit buggy, but the official version will be out in May and will be ready for general use.
I have tried many distros, including SuSE, Fedora, Severn, Slackware, Knoppix, Debian, Ark, Lindows, Phat, Dragon, LFS, G/CX and yes even FreeBSD which isn't even a "Linux", but out of all of those i chose Mandrake.
Why? Because it works. My mouse, keyboard, desktop, cdrw, dvd-rw, printer, scanner, digital camera, sound, tv card, alien beacon, toothbrush and nuclear reactor all work with Mandrake linux. Tell that to XP, who BSOD'd on me when I plugged in my digital camera!
Software is installed with ease, Hardware is configured with point and click! If you wanted the ultimate distro for both begginners AND experts (I have used linux for nearly three years) then get Mandrake!
I have a fetish for traffic cones
Back in the day (96'), I actually bought my first Linux distro that included 5 disk (~5 or ~10 bucks wasn't bad for dialup days) from Slackware and it included the best tutorial to date about how to install Linux. Yes it was hard because you had to follow directions and read but now, I can install any Linux distro from that knowledge. You will not fear what you understand.
If starting out and you really want to know Linux then try the slackware installation then moving onto compiling your own kernel distro. If you just want to run linux than Redhat is quite easy to install.
My first thought, "Whoa, The Humble Guys, are doing hardware reviews on /. now??" I remember those guys!!
www.TheHumbleGuys.com
Mod +5 Drunk
You wrote "Debian's good for people who already have some clue about Linux, or indeed experience with *nix-alike OSen."
:)
... slight messiness of hard drive partitioning / formatting is the worst stickiness; other than that it is, for good and bad, a pretty limited install. After it's on, though, apt can be used to trim or expand the available software.)
True, if you mean *installing* Debian, at least the Debian way
But for testing out whether Linux could work on one's hardware, and to give a lot of software a spin, Live CDs (I'm partial to Knoppix, partly because a lot of others, including Gnoppix, which I'd otherwise love to love, don't work as well with my hardware) are an excellent beginner course and don't cost a hard drive (or repartitioning a current one).
(And Knoppix makes IMO a pretty good 'migration' mechanism, too
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
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!
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
I don't know in Gnome-land, but KDE has K3b, which gives Nero, in my humble opinion, a run for its money.
Real life anecdote: two weeks ago I went to my friend Lorenzo's with a Knoppix disc, booted it and showed him. He liked it and wanted to keep it, but it was my only copy and I had deleted the ISO from my own hard drive. No problem. Mount his HD read/write, fire K3b, select the HD for temp storage of the iso, and rip/burn in under 30 minutes. Flawless.
The operating system was running from the same CD we were copying, mind you. No hassle.
http://barrapunto.com/ - News for nerds, en español
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 ]
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.
In Linux we trust!
Opera Watch - An Opera browser blog.
I'm on Red Hat 9 on a Toshiba Tecra 8000 networked to a Windows PC. The one thing I hated about Linux was the black type on white background default in most of the themes. The only dark theme available was white on navy blue and clunky. On Windows, I could select colors for menu bars and choose icons and sounds while in use, on Linux, I can't do that on the fly. That sounds petty, but I used to change colors and themes constantly in any long work session to reduce eyestrain. I created color combinations and saved them whenever I was bored, from psychedelic "roommate keep off this computer" warning colors to soothing deep-sea greens or Gothic red and black stuff while doing horror stories. I themed the colors to my writing in progress and it's still something I miss. Eventually a friend pointed me to freshmeat.com and I successfully downloaded a lightweight dark theme, Black Marble 2. Changing background became what I did to set the theme of a writing project -- but ever since I found out most of their gorgeous themes wouldn't work automatically, I have stayed off the site. Cool as they are, they aren't the ones I would make up on the spot. So this is a double question: Is there a Gnome "custom" theme that would let me make on the fly font and color changes within its parameters, for everyday use? Is there a way that I can create new Themes without being a programmer and understanding code? If I could do variations on Black Marble 2, it would still run light but I could vary the font color, typeface and maybe even the skinny .jpg files that make the top bar on the windows by drawing those in GIMP to the same size.
I'd like to learn how, and if I ever get it, will probably upload a lot of neat themes to Freshmeat. :)
I'll second the recommendation for Pan - it's a terrific newsreader and supports all the latest technologies.
Otherwise, if you're already using Firefox, why don't you try Mozilla Thunderbird? It's a great email client and newsreader, and it's definitely far more featureful and secure than Outlook Express.
The nice big windows media center edition ad in the middle of the windows to linux conversion article... granted the author of the article did not choose the ad.. but funny none the less.
Anybody else here immediately think "The Humble Guys" when they see THG?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
If you have ever migrated a Windows NT domain to Samba, you know what I mean...
No, the point is that the /. crowd must now post their IMHO, not their dogmas ;)
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
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.
Surely the best way to start out is to set your machine up with dual boot, so you can start using Linux, but still have access to all your Windows stuff if necessary. The article rather sounds as if you are going to completely blow away your windows installation, which I think is a very dangerous thing to do straight off as a newbie.
All the backup stuff is good, but you should really be doing this anyway on a regular basis. Although a backup is certainly recommended before doing anything as heavy as a new O/S install, it's much safer just to resize your old partitions and use the empty space to install Linux in.
This is what I did, and in fact I'm still using the FAT32 partition with most of my data on, simply because I can access it from both Linux and Windows. I haven't quite got replacements for all my standard Windows apps yet, so this way I can get the best of both worlds, and be safe. I'm surprised THG didn't recommend this.
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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
If you want, you can try Slashdotting my feeble website, but here's my checklist:s tall.pdf
http://web.praeluceo.net/docs/LinuxIn
I install Linux on friends and family computers. I have only used this particular document once, and it proved fairly successful. Apart from some questions arising regarding a few terms I used in it, it was very beneficial to both myself (as the Installer) and the person I was working with.
Something to keep in mind is who you're working with. Your traditional computer user isn't going to know they have a Pentium IV 2.4 GHz CPU, with 256 MB DDR266 RAM. They won't know the brand or chipset of their NIC, or the size of their hard drive half the time. People know how big "C" is, but on most manufactured computers, that's only part of the drive, the rest is tied up in a "recovery partition". They are the same people that respond with "Windows" when you ask them what internet browser they use, or "Netscape" when you ask them what their operating sytem is (I have gotten both of these in various forms).
But that's just my opinion.