With the ever-maturation of the Linux operating system there are more and more people considering a migration from their operating system of choice to the flagship of the open source community. For many this migration is a strange, but simple adventure. For others, however, the task is very daunting and one challenge after another. What most people do not realize is that there are very simple ways to help ease this migration.

In this brief series (if two articles can be considered a series) I will help ease the migration from both Windows to Linux and Mac to Linux. Hopefully, upon reading these articles, you will have a good game plan so your migration (or your users migration) will be as seamless as possible.

Choose your distribution wisely

This is the real key for easy migration. There are a LOT of distributions out there, for just about every type of user and every type of use. There have been plenty of distributions that have attempted to mimic the look and feel of Windows as closely as possible (this was a very ’90s tactic). But ultimately it boils down to which distribution you choose that will help to make your migration simple. Most Windows users are going to want to stick to one of the major distributions (Ubuntu, Red Hat, SuSE) if for only one reason: support. With the major distributions you can actually have a phone number to call when you have a problem. Outside of that you are going to want to look for a distribution who’s goal is simplicity. One advantage that Ubuntu has over the other major is that it takes the root user out of the picture with the help of sudo.

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