Hi

I am a newbie as it says!
I want to migrate from Windows7 , to Linux. Since using windows,have windows office as the main stay,

Use :
1. word,excel,pptx,visio,planner,ms exchange etc.

Now once i migrate, to linux what are the equivalents
Also , will my existing files and data be seen.


What would be the procedure to do this migration.

Further, is there any equivalent of dot.net framework, since have certain applications which are build on this .

advice/guidance will be of immense help please.

Kind of tired of Bills fancies!!

cheers
ravim

Welcome to Linux Ravi.

There is a package called LibreOffice. It is equivalent to MS Office. You can open all your works you had done in Word, Excel, pptx in LibreOffice and you can modify them. I don't personally know about planner, visio, and exchange. I have not used them.

I believe visio is for flowcharts (correct me if I am wrong). In that case you can use 'dia' instead. It is a really good one.

1 members found this post helpful.

I am not familiar with most of the programmes you mention, but I can comment on two of them.
First, there is more than one Linux office suite. OpenOffice, LibreOffice and Koffice, to name only three. There are others.
The Open/LibreOffice equivalent of Excel is Calc. I never used Excel, so I cannot make a comparison. Open/LibreOffice Writer is far superior to MS Word. Not being able to do things with Word is the reason I switched to Linux. OpenOffice allows me to do things that would not be possible with Word.
As for the other programmes, there will be similar Linux programmes and most of them will work at least as well as their Microsoft equivalents.

1 members found this post helpful.

Tx matrix,really appreciate this quick response, so what would be the process.

1. download linux from this site,

2. on boot , will the system ask me as to in what os i want to boot etc, so that i can choose linux , in that case, will i be able to see my existing files which are in windows boot?

3. because, till am conformable dont want to remove bill

Yes, it is called Mono.

1. Yes, download and install it.
2. If you choose to install alongside Windows that is the way it will be.
3. reasonable approach.

1 members found this post helpful.

matrix13 brought up a good point. To expand on it, not only can Linux open Microsoft documents, but if you want to save a copy of a particular document to use on a computer with MS or Apple (at work perhaps), Linux can also save that document in MS format. It is a very useful feature when I need to e-mail someone a resume and their computer cannot read Linux documents.

We have been using Google Docs for class assignments lately. It is similar to microsoft office. "Docs" is one of the options at the top of the Google page like news, youtube etc.

As long as you don't mind Google adding the contents of your documents to the file they are keeping on you.

welcome to Linux world.

as said by others, for most office documents you can use libreoffice
there is an app called gnome-planner, but I dont exactly know if thats what you need
if ms exchange is for managing email, you can use evolution which is quite a counterpart of microsoft outlook.

Ubuntu will be good for you. Download the .iso, burn it on a CD and boot for it. Ubuntu installation is easy, you can have a glance at this page if you need a tutorial.

All the best. Hope you will have a wonderful time here :-)

1) I will suggest download a distro of your choice in .ISO format and burn it to a CD or DVD, or USB drive.

2) Make room in your hard drive for your new Linux distro using a partition tool. Linux will fit in 10GB but make it bigger for future applications and data you want to save under the Linux partition, to be safe leave 20GB or more maybe 100GB or 200GB depend on the size of your hard drive.

3) boot into Windows to make sure none of the changes done so far has affected your Windows installation.

4) Boot from the media (CD, DVD, or USB) that contains your Linux distro and do a live test first. This is to make sure the distro you have downloaded is compatible with all your hardware. Test for sound, video, wireless card (if any),microphone, webcam, etc. if you see incompatibilities with the distro you have then just download another distro they are all a not monetary cost.

5)Once you are ready to install make sure you tell the installer tool in your distro that you want to install in that partition you created in step two. The installer will format the partition so it doesnt have to be previously formatted.

Good luck to you!

You need to select a distribution of Linux and download it from that distribution's site. Ubuntu is the distribution usually suggested for Linux beginners. You need to select a 32 bit or 64 bit version of the distribution. If you have decent hardware, 64 bit is probably the better choice.

You download a .iso file and burn that to CD as an image. Many windows CD burning programs make that process non obvious, so many people burn a .iso to a CD in files/folders mode, which just stores it there in an unusable form. I use Imgburn on Windows, which is a great freeware CD burning tool and also makes the difference between files/folders mode (which you don't want) and image mode (which you do want) more obvious than in a typical program (though exact phrasing varies across versions).

Most Linux installers (including Ubuntu) let you choose to overwrite the entire disk or to install into the unpartitioned space and leave previous partitions unchanged. Make sure you understand the choices the installer is offering.

With Windows 7, it is best to use the partitioning tool inside Windows to shrink the Windows partition(s) leaving unpartitioned space for Linux. Do not use the Windows partitioning tool to create partitions for Linux (common beginner error).

If you choose (during Linux install) to leave previous partitions unchanged, the installer will usually detect Windows on the previous partition and configure grub (Linux boot manager) to offer you a choice of Linux or Windows on each boot. Occasionally that install step doesn't work as expected and Windows isn't bootable after Linux install. As long as you didn't make the mistake of telling the Linux installer to use the whole disk, Windows is still there and grub can be easily reconfigured to offer the right choices. When that happens you need to ask and experts will tell you which info to post about your partitioning and your current grub configuration in order to let us tell you what tiny change to make to correct the grub configuration.

It is fairly easy to set up read/write access to Windows partitions within Linux. I'm not sure how much of that Ubuntu sets up by default vs. how much you might need to set up yourself. That is normally set up in a small text file named /etc/fstab so if you have any questions about accessing Windows files from Linux, you should start by posting a copy of that text file, so experts will know what the Linux installer has set up for you and will know what changes might be needed to give complete access if you don't have it already.

Regarding TroN's suggestions above:
(2) and (5) It is common to use a Linux partitioning tool (booted from Linux liveCD) to prepare partitioning before installing Linux. You might use that to shrink the Windows partition. But for W7, I think it is much safer to use the Windows partitioning tool to shrink Windows partition. You might use that (liveCD mode partitioning) to create partitions for the Linux install. Some Linux installers (such as Centos) are easier and more understandable when you are telling them to reformat and install into specific existing partitions. Others (I think including Ubuntu) are easier and more understandable when you are telling them to create the partitions they will install into from the unpartitioned space that was left from shrinking Windows. Bottom line, I think you won't need to use a Linux liveCD partitioning tool for either of those steps.

(4) LiveCD is a mode in which you can run Linux directly from a CD without installing it and without disturbing any of the disk contents. LiveCD mode can be a bit confusing for a beginner because it will pause at odd moments where an installed Linux would respond instantly. So a beginner won't be sure whether nothing happened because he clicked the wrong thing vs. nothing happened because he didn't wait long enough after clicking. But aside from that flaw, liveCD is a very useful tool.

Most Linux distributions combine liveCD and installer CD into one CD and you can choose which you want each time you boot the CD. Other distributions have a different image for liveCD vs. installer. (In Ubuntu, they are the same CD). You should have a Linux liveCD for fixing any serious problems that happen during install or any time later. You might want to use a liveCD for "look before you leap" testing to see if a specific version of a specific distribution sets up the right drivers by default for your hardware. The most likely problem spots are display and wireless. If a distribution doesn't get those right by default, it almost certainly can be fixed without switching distribution. But for a beginner, it may be faster to try a different distribution rather than go several rounds of posting info here to reach the point that an expert could tell you what to fix.

I would caution you that Open Office, and I presume Libre Office are work-alikes of MS-Office. There is a limited ability to seemlessly exchange data files between MS-Office and Open Office. Many formats work okay, and some don't. Sometimes, if you use MS Office to modify a file created with Open Office, it will render improperly when opened again in Open Office. My workplace struggled for years with attempting to support both tools, and eventually abandoned the whole idea. For office oriented data, it is MS only here. If you can use only Open Office, it will work just fine.
--- rod.

Hi all:

Firstly tx a million for the kind of support that i received, is fabulous and exteremely encouraging. thank you so much, i am really touched. tx a lot.

Here is what i have done:

1. Installed ubuntu.
2. Partitioning, it has got 80 gb, took it as default = have about 300 gb space on my comp want to increase, so how do i do that please.
3. on boot, it gives me option to choose between bill & ubuntu- i am happy with that.

4. used to have thurderbird ealier as well so happy with that here as well.

now , since all my files are in windows, is there a seamless way to migrate from windows to ubuntu or will i have to do the usb way of copy them into ubuntu.

I want to remove windows completly now, looks like i am comfortable on day one itself, but guess will wait for few more days.
Just want to get my files access and put them into ubuntu.

thank you very once again for your support.

Freedom, it is at last from the claws of bill!!

libre office, looks good, times looks better then open office.

Start a live session from your Ubuntu CD, then use GParted to resize the Ubuntu partition.

You should have access to your Windows partition from within your file manager.

In a terminal do:
Post the output if you need more specific instructions regarding partition resizing, or if the Windows partition was not mounted by default.

Also
The output of that will tell us what partitions are mounted each time Linux boots.

Also
That tells what partitions are mounted at the moment.

All that will let someone tell you exactly what you need to do to access the Windows partition(s) from Linux. Copying files over would be easy as long as there is enough room. But keeping and using them where they are now may also be easy. At this point that decision should depend on how sure you are that you don't want to use Windows any more on that computer.

If the Windows partition is mounted, then you have access to its files from any part of Linux that can use files.

Some Linux file managers give you some access to files on Windows partitions or LAN Windows shares even when those partitions or shares are not mounted. I'm not sure of the details, especially since I don't even know which file manager you have in Ubuntu.

I'm not sure what TobiSGD means. I hope he said file manager just because that is a convenient place to access files and he is assuming Ubuntu already mounted the Windows partition by default. So the files are available to all of Linux, not just in the file manager.