Migrating from Windows to Linux

Why it's really become painless these days

Prepared by Colin Charles

byte@aeon.com.my

http://www.bytebot.net/

Overview

If you fail to plan, you really do plan to fail

Desktop migration

Also multi-user desktops

Server migration

Applications that are now “open source” based

Still using your Windows-based applications

Why migrate to Linux?

Huge community of developers

High performance OS

Open standards

Tonnes of utilities and applications available!

It's FREE

Runs on not-only x86 or PowerPC hardware – has so many other supported platforms

Planning for a home-user desktop migration

Questions to ask:

What do you do with your computer on a daily basis?

What applications do you run?

Is your hardware compatible with Linux?

Video card, sound card, additional peripherals like digital cameras, USB devices, network card, printer and more

Have others had success installing it on the same laptop?

GNU/Linux Preinstallation Checklist

http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Pre-Installation-Checklist.html

Some answers...

If all you do is word-processing, some usage of office based applications, and surf the Internet, you're an average home user – migration is easy!

If you play many games...

If you use specialized applications, an alternative may need to be found

A little case study

Use office software – Microsoft Office

Quicken for cash management

Photoshop for image editing

Internet-based software

Internet Explorer, Pegasus Mail, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Instant Messenger, mIRC, SecureCRT, Agent

Coding

MS Visual Studio, ActiveState Perl & Python

Palm Pilot syncing

Never played games...

I found alternatives...

Office software – OpenOffice.org

Quicken got replaced by GNUCash

The GIMP replaced Photoshop

Internet-based software

Mozilla/Firebird, Ximian Evolution, LICQ, EveryBuddy, X-Chat/BitchX, plain Jane ssh with Keychain, slrn

Coding

Gcc/gdb, perl, python, DDD, and many more!

JPilot/Kpilot, Evolution

A Desktop Publishing Firm

From an entire Windows environment, with a MacOS based laptop, they're fully open-source now

Server runs Debian GNU/Linux, desktops run RedHat Linux 8.0, with Mozilla, OpenOffice.org and Scribus

The Mac really got replaced by Scribus and OpenOffice.org

A suggestion on planning

Find your alternative software packages first

If they have Windows equivalents, try them first

Make sure your hardware is compatible

Decide on starting with a dual-boot system

Once you boot into Windows a whole lot less, you know you're ready to fully migrate!

Choose a distro

Finding alternative software

A good list exists of the common equivalents:

http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/

Freshmeat.net is really a good friend to have around

Google, as well as Google Groups are helpful too

Windows-based Open Source Software

Many of these such things are available

For servers, MS even has “Services for Unix”!

Think Mozilla for web-browsing/e-mail/news

Think OpenOffice.org for Office software

Think Cygwin for a “Linux” on your Windows desktop

Knoppix – Linux on a CDROM

Ready to migrate?

If you were comfortable with the earlier software, and worked out their nuances, you are ready

BACKUP!!! Then defrag.

Going the dual-boot way?

GRUB, with chain-loading tends to handle Windows 2000/XP partitions better than LILO

Resizing the disk – ntfsresize, parted/QTParted

Later making active partitions – fdisk/cfdisk/Disk Druid

Choosing a Distro

http://www.distrowatch.com/ will come in handy

Mandrake Linux is very user-friendly, and comes with just about everything setup out of the box

Red Hat Linux is just as friendly, a little more “commercial” than Mandrake, but this has changed

Debian – hardly in tune with a GUI for setup, use only if you feel really brave

Understanding User Accounts

Windows 2000 and Mac OS X started with the correct idea of user accounting

Basically two important groups:

Root users

Normal users

Has its advantages – on a single shared machine; malicious application execution isn't harmful to the system

Installing Linux

The fun part!

Lots of varying reports, on varying hardware, with varying distros.

Hopefully the bootloader gets installed correctly, then all is well (with Windows and Linux)

Hardware detection is a bit flaky – Mandrake does it well, Red Hat has kudzu, and Debian takes some form of tweaking – hardware discovery helps

Choosing a Window Manager

Many choices (as usual)

GNOME (my preference)

KDE (mature, has lots of additional utilities, sort of sponsored by the German government too)

Xfce

WindowMaker, AfterStep, fvwm, Blackbox, Enlightenment and heaps more

Login display managers – gdm, kdm, xdm

Installing Software – Debian

Uses the famed APT-GET system, with dselect and tasksel

apt-setup – configure your sources.list

apt-get update – update changes

apt-get dist-upgrade – system wide upgrades

apt-cache search <package_name> - find a package

apt-get install <package_name> - install stuff

dpkg -i

Aptitude (text-based); synaptic, kpackage, gnome-apt, etc... (GUI based); apt-cdrom

Installing Software – Mandrake

urpmi <package_name> - installs a package

urpmq <name> - searches for a package

urpmf <filename> - searches through files

urpmi.addmedia – add RPM and urpmi databases

urpmi.update -a – upgrades database of packages

DrakConf has a front-end configuration tool which makes life so much simpler!

Mandrake Control Centre

Installing Software – RedHat

rpm -ivh <package.rpm> - installs, verbosely

rpm -e

Doesn't do package dependencies :(

rpmdb-redhat; --aid option

up2date

APT-RPM – started by Connectiva

http://bazar.conectiva.com.br/~godoy/apt-howto/

RedCarpet, yum

Install Software – tarballs

Sometimes, you don't get RPM's or DEB's of your stuff

Usually:

tar -zxvpf filename.tar.gz

cd filename

./configure

make

sudo make install

Use bunzip2 on .bz2, or uncompress on .Z

Backing up (and mounting)

Floppies – mount them first, copy data over, then unmount them

CDR/CDRW's – becoming the common way to backup data

XCDRoast, k3b, Nautilus drag&drop support

Needs ide-scsi emulation

Upgrade to kernel release 2.6, and ATAPI IDE stuff works

Rsync, Unison

Getting some tunes going...

Gnome CD Player, KsCD

XMMS, Rhythmbox, GStreamer

Audacity – Sound Forge/Cool Edit replacement

Grip, cdparanoia (text-mode)

MP3's don't work out of the box on Red Hat Linux

http://havardk.xmms.org/dist/xmms-1.2.7-rh8-rh9-rpm/

What about video?

Xine, Ogle – DVD players

VLC – VideoLan Client; great for VCD's

mplayer - MPEG/DivX/etc...

Works better with GUI stuff built in

Xvidcore, divx4linux

Film Gimp

Graphics...

The GIMP – Photoshop replacement/killer!

GQView – slide shows, general viewer

Dia – draw diagrams, including UML

OpenOffice.org Draw – vector graphics galore!

Office Software

Most people use their PC's for this sort of reason!

Koffice, Gnome Office

Prefers OpenOffice.org

“95% Microsoft Office, at 1% the cost”

Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math, HTML, Formula Editor, and more!

Mr. Project – project management

GNUCash – accounting software

Internet Based Software

Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, Firebird, Konqueror, Galeon

Ximian Evolution – the Outlook replacement

Usual console utilities:

Ping, traceroute, netstat, etc...

mutt/pine/elm – text based e-mail

Exim, fetchmail, procmail

wvdial/KPPP

Linux Gaming

TuxRacer

FreeCell, Backgammon, Gnibbles

Don't know much about this, but:

http://www.linuxgamers.net/

http://www.linuxgames.com/

http://lgames.sourceforge.net/

Loki had good games (?) but have since closed down

UT2003 and America's Army are natively released on Linux

Other interesting stuff

Scribus – great for DTP use

XPdf

Some hands on tips - http://linuxrefresher.com/intro/migrate.htm

http://www.linuxvirgins.com/ - A gentle guide for first time users

gkrellm; use cron to start xmms; etc...

Running Windows software

WINE

http://www.winehq.org/

http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/pmail-wine.html

Refer to the WINE database of apps that actually work on Linux – the list is very large

Running emulators like Bochs works too

TrueType fonts can be used on Linux, natively

BitStream Vera TTF's are not free

Maintenance

Install sudo

Distro-specific help:

apt-get dist-upgrade regularly

up2date works; payed up is quicker

/etc/inetd.conf or /etc/xinetd/* control services that that the machine allows

netstat -l – look at ports that are being listened to

Keep up to date with patches/new kernels

Webmin

http://www.webmin.com/

Takes the intimidation out of doing things

Work-able via your web-browser

Not highly secure (IMHO), but usable if you've got machines at home

Burn a CD, manage SAMBA, just about do anything!

http://webmin.thirdpartymodules.com/

More config tools

Redhat-config-*

DrakConf

KUser/redhat-config-users

KCron

alien

updatedb&

Compile a kernel

Knoppix

Bootable CD, with a full KDE-based Debian GNU/Linux Distro, plus excellent hardware detection

Can be installed on-to a hard disk

knx-hdinstall

And follow the on-screen instructions

Fully apt-compliant with Debian testing/unstable

http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/debian-knoppix.html

Careful with partitioning and chain-loading though

Getting a server installed

Debian is probably a good bet, but so is Red Hat

Web server – Apache – replaces IIS, and more (with WebDAV and others...)

Mail server – Exim/qmail/postfix – replaces Exchange

Database server – MySQL, postgresql

Remote access services – OpenSSH sshd

And many more... including Jabber servers, irc servers

Samba

A Linux file server, with Windows clients

Good for workgroups, homes, etc...

Needs to be tweaked & configured

Doesn't work to full optimizations out of the box

samba-swat is worth investigating

Seamless integration

Samba 3.0 is “out”

Things that don't work too well...

Kazaa

The latest whiz-bang MSN Messenger that MS keeps on changing

Occasional document conversions to/from MS Office formats seem to break

Oracle's database – only Red Hat works reasonably well; system requirements are high

OCR software is still quite young

Parallel port scanner support is still flaky

Q&A

Any questions?

I'll try to give answers :)

Thank You

Colin Charles

byte@aeon.com.my

http://www.bytebot.net/

Colin Charles

2003-08-22T14:34:08

Colin Charles