Re: Migrating Windows to Linux Questions.

From: Byron A Jeff (byron_at_cc.gatech.edu)
Date: 11/13/04 

Date: 13 Nov 2004 11:57:14 -0500

In article <416e2$418e2d31$cb248f0$28964@nf1.news-service-com>,
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> wrote:
- byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff),
- In a message on 7 Nov 2004 08:24:39 -0500, wrote :
-
-BAJ> In article <7f331a40.0411070116.2ee332e1@posting.google.com>,
-BAJ> Lukav <lukavia@gmail.com> wrote:
-BAJ> -Hi all,
-BAJ> -
-BAJ> -This is my first post to Google Groups, so I'm not sure this is the
-BAJ> -right place, but I hope to get better in Time.
-BAJ> -
-BAJ> -The Case:
-BAJ> -I'm System Administrator for a Company with about 30 computers. I have
-BAJ> -a Windows 2000 Advanced server, running as Mail, File, Proxy, Web
-BAJ> -Server and Router.
-BAJ> -(It was there when I got the job :( )
-BAJ>
-BAJ> Not usual.
-BAJ>
-BAJ> -
-BAJ> -I also have 2 ISP, but using Win2k AS it is impossible to use them at
-BAJ> -the same time or I haven't find a decent manual to do it.
-BAJ> -
-BAJ> -However to make my life easier I decided to migrate to Linux.
-BAJ>
-BAJ> I know this is a bizarre question but it does need to be asked: Will migrating
-BAJ> make things easier/transparent for your clients and company?
-BAJ>
-BAJ> -
-BAJ> -The think is, I cannot spare several days in the office for installing
-BAJ> -Linux. And stop everybody work while I do it.
-BAJ>
-BAJ> Two points: 1. It won't take several days. 2. Is there any reason you can't
-BAJ> install/configure Linux on a spare machine, test, and finish the migration
-BAJ> at a off time, or off dat?
-BAJ>
-BAJ> -So I figure out I can try to use software like VMWare for installing
-BAJ> -on the empty HDD, configure it and then remove Win2K AS HDD and let
-BAJ> -linux take over.
-BAJ> -
-BAJ> -So my question is:
-BAJ> -1. Is it possible?
-BAJ>
-BAJ> Everyone else jumped in with a flat no. Why? Why do you think that a completely
-BAJ> configured system under VMWare cannot boot and run under native hardware?
-BAJ>
-BAJ> The only problem I see is that VMWare by necessity virtualizes hardware. So
-BAJ> I'm unsure if a properly configured VMWare running system would use the same
-BAJ> drivers as if it were running on the native hardware.
-
-It wouldn't generally. I do know that the *reverse* process does NOT
-work -- we retired a MS-Windows box and put the MS-Windows box's disks
-in a linux machine and installed VMWare on the Linux box -- no dice --
-we would have needed to re-install MS-Windows (NT 4) and with a bit of
-finagling (since the disks were SCSI and 'native' NTFS) it would have
-been possible to mount the old WinNT disk's partition as data drives.

But that's windows. It seems to wrap itself around hardware like the Alien
wraps it mouth around a snack. Linux is much much more forgiving about being
moved. I've upgraded my MB three times on my main box. Each time just a
trivial change in drivers, and everything worked as before.

So there's no reason to think that the same isn't true moving from a VMWare
setup to native hardware.

-Not easy or straight forward. We basically didn't bother with this.
-(Even though the Linux box was a pure SCSI system, the VMWare 'virtual
-process' showed up as having a pure IDE system -- it had an 'IDE' CD-ROM
-(mapped to the *SCSI* CD-ROM), and an IDE hard drive (mapped to a
-container file on one of the SCSI disks), and so on. In other words the
-'virtual' system had little in common with the real system. It even had
-a virtual video card and its own 'virtual' BIOS. It is difficult
-(seriously tricky) to directly access 'native' hardware. The normal way
-a 'virtual' PC accesses the native O/S's disks is via a virtual network.

These may be mitigating factors. But again Linux distrubtions don't freak out
when migrating to new hardware. It'll of course require a couple of config
changes. But I still question whether or not there are any showstoppers here.

-
-Since basic PC hardware is so cheap and since Linux is a (relatively)
-low-resource operating system, it is basically simpler and cheaper to
-just buy new hardware. It actually does not have be all that powerful a
-box anyway. Once the migration has been completed, the original server
-box can get an fresh O/S install (Linux) and so on and be put back in
-service as a Linux server. Or available as a 'spare' system.

All possible. But I felt the OP made it clear that there wasn't additional
hardware resources to use. That's the only reason I can think of for wanting
to attempt to run it on existing hardware.

BAJ

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