The end of Windows 10 support in October 2025 presents a great opportunity for the Linux community to collectively help users transition their still-function...
  • a1studmuffin@aussie.zoneEnglish
    11·
    1 month ago

    I’d love to see a Linux distro attempt to implement a migration wizard for Windows users. Do all the heavy lifting for them, including walking them through what personal data and accounts they want to migrate across, creating a bootable USB installer, then running said installer and copying across their data for them. Maybe even detect and install any apps they’re using, or suggest FOSS alternatives. In practice I imagine this would be a nightmare to try and implement effectively, but it’d be pretty cool to see.

    • Scoopta@programming.dev
      2·
      1 month ago

      The copy across their data for them honestly sounds the most difficult just because of the free space requirements and juggling the partitions. It would only work for users that had 50%+ free space. There is a tool called ntfs2btrfs which may be an option but in place filesystem conversions scare me, maybe it’s reliable. Otherwise you have to leave them on NTFS or erase their data which are both less than ideal.

      • a1studmuffin@aussie.zoneEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        Or maybe do it via external USB drive or network location. But agree, it would complicate things. Though for light users that might only have a few GB of documents on their computer and mostly do everything in the browser, it might be crazy enough to just work…

        • Scoopta@programming.dev
          2·
          1 month ago

          Network location sounds impractical for anyone other than power users, maybe USB? Probably not big enough tho. Looking at my system, I have tebibytes of data and don’t see how it could work outside of an in place conversion. Ofc I’m already on Linux but if I weren’t.