[ubuntu-za] Migrating from vista to Ubuntu

[Morgan Collett]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 13:50, Bruno Mondego <bruno at tropical.co.mz> wrote:
> for instance, i need help on "converting" all my email from windows mail, to
> another mail program, like thunderbird.

This one I can help with:

Thunderbird on Windows can import Outlook / Outlook Express mail. Then
it's in the Thunderbird format, and you can copy the files over to the
Ubuntu partition and add/import them into your account settings there.

> firefox bookmarks aswell.

Try just copy the contents of your Firefox profile directory over - if
you're using FF3.0 on both it should work fine.

Back up your Ubuntu .mozilla and .mozilla-thunderbird if you have
anything in there which you want to keep, in case you overwrite
something important.

> im using a hp laptop, wich has a separate partition for recovery.
> if i install ubuntu, will i lose that recovery partition forever?

Do you need it? On my laptop the recovery partition was the install
for Windows... If you reinstall Ubuntu you can either use the whole
drive which will wipe that, or you can just delete the windows
partition which will keep it.

> and by the way, wich programs you think are best to exchange for the windows
> programs?

Depends what you use. I recently migrated a family member over after
their Windows machine blew up and they needed a new PC without the
cost of Windows. So far Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice and GIMP
provide all they really need.

Let us know if there are specific apps you want to replace - remember
that Ubuntu includes many of the things you need separate apps for in
Windows, like audio player, cd burning, DVD, etc. Whenever I do see a
Windows machine I'm always shocked (again) by the number of useless
third party apps installed running in the system tray, sucking up
resources.

Regards
Morgan