Migration from Windows to Linux

[Bill Mullen]

On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 19:34, David Ecklein wrote:

> However, to repeat my example, consider that most people running Windows are
> today on the internet and are probably using Outlook Express.  A good part
> of the difficulty in migration is right there.  If they have been at it for
> a few years, their email archives are voluminous and constitute a
> significant value to them.  Their address books and various settings have
> grown like Topsy.  A utility to transfer such OE accounts into even one of
> its Linux equivalents would go a long way to getting people off the fence.
> Some sort of cataloging such aids to migration would be a good core for a
> migration manual, and a powerful promotion for wider Linux usage.

The best pre-migration strategy I've heard yet is to get used to using
FOSS apps on the Win platform first, wherever possible (such as Firefox,
OpenOffice.org, etc.). This isn't practical in all cases, of course.

As for getting a mail store out of Outbreak/OE, the easiest method is to
set up an IMAP server on the Linux box, and then connect to it from
Outlook (by creating a new IMAP account). You can then create whatever
folders you want on the IMAP server and move the messages directly from
the local folders to the IMAP ones, all within Outlook; all decent Linux
mail clients support IMAP (though Kmail's support of it could be better,
IMHO), so the mail is now equally available from within any of them once
you make the switch - just set "localhost" as the server name.

On a Mandrake box, doing the following as root would get IMAP running:

urpmi imap
chkconfig imap on
chkconfig imaps on
service xinetd restart

That doesn't do anything for the address book, but it's a start ... ;)

Here are a few links that you might find useful in your quest:

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

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-roadmap.html

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6705

http://www.kbst.bund.de/Anlage304428/Migration_Guide.pdf


HTH!

-- 
Bill Mullen
RLU# 270075