Norbert Cartagena wrote:
>
> I've been thinking (actually this was actually a
> random thought), but is it possible to "upgrade" from
> Windows9x to Linux? By that I mean the following:
>
> Billy has a Windows9x/ME box. Billy wants to install
> linux, but likes his information where it is (or just
> doesn;t care for backing up his collection of 600
> Frankie Yankovic MP3s), and doesn't want to reset his
> settings (Billy is using his University's internet
> settings). Billy grabs a new version of Linux that
> says it can do an upgrade from Windows to Linux. Billy
> upgrades and now has a full Linux system running, with
> no Windows involved anywhere, running KDE (it just
> looks more like Windows), bash,
> Ext3/ReiserFS/Whatever... the works.
>
> Is that even possible? I was thinking that MAYBE it
> could be done by having the install do it one
> partition at a time or something.
Technically, "It's just a simple matter of programming."
Practically, it's a LOT of work to convert filesystem types back and
forth. It's easier by far to backup-reformat-restore.
Along similar lines, to actually "convert" a windows desktop into a
Linux desktop you'll have to parse .ini files which will be scattered
all over the system and somehow parse the registry files, which I'm not
sure are documented anyplace and in any case will be filled with 95%
useless entries you don't want to know about anyway.
Plus you have to consider that after the system reboots, Billy's going
to wonder where all his applications went, unless you also set up WINE
for him, which is probably non-trivial.
Didn't someone at one time have a Linux distro that installed onto a
separate partition but somehow "migrated" all your Windows desktop
settings over to your Linux desktop? I seem to recall something along
those lines.
--
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#!/usr/bin/perl -w
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;$t=255;@t=map
{$_%16or$t^=$c^=($m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;
$t^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)
[$_%8]}(16..271);if((@a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h=5;$_=unxb24,join
"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}@ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$d=
unxV,xb25,$_;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d>>8^($f=$t&($d
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8^$q<<6))<<9,$_=$t[$_]^(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}
print+x"C*",@a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval
usage: qrpff 153 2 8 105 225 < /mnt/dvd/VOB_FILENAME \
| extract_mpeg2 | mpeg2dec -
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
http://www.eff.org/ http://www.anti-dmca.org/
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5537/2028
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