[Evolution] Some Newbie migration tools

["Tom Musgrove" <TomM pentawall com>]

I'd like to make the migration of newbies to Evolution and Linux as easy as
possible...

With that in mind, I'd like to suggest the following tools <note that they
are not strictly Evolution related...>

1) A CD or download with the following

a) A perl script (and engine) that autoloads [this is a premigration to
linux tool] and does the following

sends a message to find to find all non default windows files.  IE other
programs and other data files installed on the computer.

It would then check with its list and see the programs degree of support
with WINE and/or DOSEMU and write the program location and support info to a
floppy.

It would then scan for all of the data files on the computer, and check to
see what support there is for them in a similar manner.

Next would be a scan for configuration information, which would again be
written to floppy.  [Including amount of free/used HD space]

At this point, a dialogue explaining the results, and whether any programs
or data files found are either unknown or known not to work well.

If the user decided to continue, then a script would run through the making
of install floppies, only requiring that the user switch disks and nothing
more complicated...

Next would be a prompt to back up data files.  If the user has mass storage
media they would be prompted to use those, if not the option to do a 'remote
backup' would be suggested ('a backup to a remote storage area over the Net,
possibly an agreement could be made with one of the free services for temp
storage during a migration...).  Not a great idea for 56k modems, but it
depends on how much data they have...


At this point, they would have an option to boot linux from CD which would
allow them to test the 'unknown' programs with WINE/DOSEMU.

Next would be a repartition, this would hopefully just resize the Windows
partition (probably leaving a Gig of free space...) and allocating the rest
for linux.  This too should be done automatically, using the HD size and
free space info to make the decisions.

Then would be the install, again using the configuration information scanned
earlier.

After the install, the data files and Windows programs would be
automatically associated with their appropriate handlers (WINE, DOSEMU, or
for data, the appropriate Linux handler ...) with a menu named Windows
Programs added to the menu bar, and a windows documents file also...

Voila - the most painless Linux migration in the history... - An install my
mother could do <grin>

So what do you think?  Is this feasible?  -  And where should I forward this
to (assuming helixcode doesn't want to be the ones to do this...)

Tom M.
TomM pentstar com