MoveOver - Windows to Linux migration tool

[Edvard]

For those who have been watching Zaine's experiences with switching to Linux and would like to follow suit, here is a tool to help.
I haven't tested it personally (already been running Linux too long), but it's apparently fully compatible with Sun's Java desktop and Novell's Suse distro.
There's a freeware version (it says for Fedora Core 2 only, but I bet you could hack the zip to fit your own distro... ) and a work-in-progress open source version

MoveOver is a user-friendly, wizard-driven migration tool that migrates your Windows environment to your new Linux Desktop in just 2 simple steps.

http://www.resolvo.c...s/moveover/index.htm

from ShellCity

[zridling]

Interesting. I presume it works only with compatible apps between GNU/Linux and Windows. For example, it couldn't migrate an outlook PST file, so your email would need to be in Thunderbird or something like that, right?

[Edvard]

Yes, you would expect that to be the case, but from their Features page:

The following features are supported by both MoveOver Version 3.0.0 and MoveOver Version 4.0.0:

Migration Features
Outlook® Express
   - Email Account & Configurations
   - Emails & Email Folders
Outlook® 2000, XP & 2003
   - Email Account & Configurations
   - Emails & Email Folders
   - Contacts
   - Calendar
   - Tasks
   - Notes
Internet Preferences
   - Bookmarks
   - Cookies
Look & Feel
   Wallpaper
   Fonts
Documents/ Files/ Folders
   - All file types
   - Folders & Files
   - Documents
   - Databases
   - Spreadsheets
   - Photos
   - Movies
   - Music
   - Graphics

So, basically it looks like it moves settings from cross-platform apps, tries to translate between incompatibles (eek!), and copies the contents of your "My [Documents, Pictures, etc...]" folders.
The "file types" setting bothers me as well. The way Linux and Windows handle file types is VASTLY different (it goes beyond lack of a registry...), so I would be curious as to how they handle that one.

[softheartpc]

I've used Linux of varrious flavors, Redhat(many)Mandrake, Fedora, etc. All of them useally re-code files in there own language, as well as ask you when they do it, so u can select a compatable media, however most (98%) of UNIX OS systems, work fine with any other varity of program files. (All "Video, Photo, Music," files of any format, 99% of all Doccument Programs, (MSWorks, Money, Lotus, Coral, and the like, etc. ) as well as the entire Internet structure was designed on a UNIX system. The Question you havent asked, is: "Which came first, EXE files? Or C+?" The second question is: "What OS is C+ found on?"

[Edvard]

IIRC, the C programming language was founded on the idea of being able to write recyclable code that would run on whatever hardware you had a compiler for (unlike Assembly, which would only run on the hardware it was written on), which was the foundational philosophy of Unix.

One thing I love about Linux is that any file is an executable, you just have to set the bit.