Today I learned that my humble hobby project #Linux #Desktop Migration Tool is being used in a company with 600k employees to migrate to new Linux workstations.
It's amazing how far code I started writing at night to help myself can get.
@JigenDaisukeJr I'm not sure if I can name, but of course, not all 600k employees have Linux workstations, but it's an organization of this size that also has quite a few Linux workstations.
it was originally written for home use. You get a new laptop and you need to move your apps, settings and user data from the old machine to the new one. The goal was to only use tools that are pre-installed on Silverblue. The tool expects that the OS installed on the new machine and the user account has already been created, no provisioning included. No Satellite or Foreman. It isn't intended for mass deployments, but for individuals. But people people get new laptops in organizations and it's usually on them how they move the data from the old to the new, so they find it useful even in larger organizations.
@cybervegan Thanks, this is a project that has rather extreme imbalance between time spent on investigating and experimenting and time spent on writing the code. Linux desktop migration was not really much explored on the "widely deployable" level before.
Many times in the past I wished there was a utility to do this, though. The process is usually very time-consuming and that's not what you want when you should be working tickets or cutting code.
These days, I use Debian with MATE desktop, and tend to avoid flatpaks, but I know I'm an outlier there - I know lots of other people will find it useful.
@cybervegan I don't really have anything against traditional packages, but if I supported them, the complexity would grow exponentially. The script can be also used to migrate between distros. What package formats to support, how to map packages from one distro to another one? Where to look for user data? Because it can be anywhere. Flatpak makes it viable. It only has one source for all distros, it has one location where applications store user data...
Yep. makes total sense - I can speak from experience there, because sometimes package names change, and you also have to manage dependencies...
I have a "process" I've developed over the years, for my own migrations, but it's much less critical when it's only my laptop, for personal use. My comment was not intended as a criticism - it's still very useful.
they don't, but I think it's well balanced here. I'm well paid for working on open source for Red Hat. And this company happens to be one of the biggest customers of my team (completely unrelated to my migration tool) and they have also contributed quite a lot of code to projects we use.
@kiudecan not sure if it'd help you with Windows to Linux migrations, it's really intended for Linux to Linux migrations. The primary scenario is that you get a new laptop and you want to migrate apps, settings and user data from the old machine to the new one.
Jigen Daisuke, Jr
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •Jiří Eischmann
in reply to Jigen Daisuke, Jr • • •Jigen Daisuke, Jr
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •Jiří Eischmann
in reply to Jigen Daisuke, Jr • • •Robert Riemann 🇪🇺
in reply to Jigen Daisuke, Jr • • •@JigenDaisukeJr I'm on it with the personal project eu-os.gitlab.io @eu_os
Did you deploy with #Foreman / Redhat Satellite ?
#EU_OS
EU OS
EU OS Proof-of-ConceptJiří Eischmann
in reply to Robert Riemann 🇪🇺 • • •Jigen Daisuke, Jr
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •cybervegan
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •Jiří Eischmann
in reply to cybervegan • • •@cybervegan Sure: codeberg.org/sesivany/linux-de…
It's nothing breath taking, just a 400-line script, but it does the job.
linux-desktop-migration-tool
Codeberg.orgcybervegan
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •Jiří Eischmann
in reply to cybervegan • • •cybervegan
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •Many times in the past I wished there was a utility to do this, though. The process is usually very time-consuming and that's not what you want when you should be working tickets or cutting code.
These days, I use Debian with MATE desktop, and tend to avoid flatpaks, but I know I'm an outlier there - I know lots of other people will find it useful.
Jiří Eischmann
in reply to cybervegan • • •cybervegan
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •Yep. makes total sense - I can speak from experience there, because sometimes package names change, and you also have to manage dependencies...
I have a "process" I've developed over the years, for my own migrations, but it's much less critical when it's only my laptop, for personal use. My comment was not intended as a criticism - it's still very useful.
Patrick Laimbock
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •Jiří Eischmann
in reply to Patrick Laimbock • • •Patrick Laimbock
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •EV not Petrol
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •Jiří Eischmann
in reply to EV not Petrol • • •Snippety Snap (she/her)
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •Kiudecan
in reply to Jiří Eischmann • • •Jiří Eischmann
in reply to Kiudecan • • •