http://www.osnews.com/story/21392/The_History_of_OS_Migration Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:20:21 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?360900 http://osnews.com/thread?360900 ... and genuinely nice guy. He did an amazing C64 talk at the last CCC (was on OSnews) and the spearheaded the Xbox Linux projects. He knows his shit
(Insider info: He claims that his employer forces him to use OSX. That is obviously just a lame excuse to avoid getting stoned by the OpenBSD-loving CCC Hacker community, but nobody is perfect.) Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kragil) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360902 http://osnews.com/thread?360902 > It had no option to import my Firefox bookmarks. I don’t use Safari at all anymore

Yes it has !
I personally imported Firefox 3's bookmarks to Safari 4 on my work's PC.

It's not in the basic menu so you have to make appear the "full one", but it's available.

Please correct the article.Edited 2009-04-29 08:49 UTC Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (biak) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360903 http://osnews.com/thread?360903 Not on the Mac. There’s an "Import Bookmarks" menu but that gives you a Finder to select an HTML file. It’s not compatible with Firefox 3’s Places SQLite bookmarks. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360905 http://osnews.com/thread?360905 On the PC, I did it through the "HTML" too.
Not elegant, but it worked well.
I didn't check on my Mac. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (biak) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360907 http://osnews.com/thread?360907 Just Googled a solution - export to HTML from Firefox first, then import in Safari 4. Too late now, I’ve already made my decision, Firefox 3.5 is much better.

Given that Firefox is open source, it really wouldn’t be difficult for Apple to add Firefox bookmark import into Safari, even IE8 does it now as they’ve had to admit defeat. The point with migration is that if it’s not offered right there at the start then it does nothing to endear me to the product. I shouldn‘t have to Google this stuff, because regular users certainly won’t. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360909 http://osnews.com/thread?360909 Since my bookmarks rarely - of ever - change, I just keep an exported HTML file of them on my shared external drive. This way I can easily import them to wherever I want. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360911 http://osnews.com/thread?360911 Too much change going on for me, let alone how disorganised they are x_x

Either way, regardless of whether it’s possible or not, we’re talking about migration (either from one browser to another, or more importantly from one OS to another).

I want to be able to install Ubuntu and have my Firefox profle imported for me (or cross-import from Windows IE if a user is new to Firefox). This currently isn’t done, and it’s not rocket-science. Do it peeps, your users need it! Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360912 http://osnews.com/thread?360912 After reading that part bit, I thought that you just used an older version of Safari.

I find it troubling they don't provide that option. Opera has it since I can remember..

Anyways, the bigger problem with migration is the new paradigm the users need to adapt and not so much the settings - tho adjusting it can indeed help.

However copying all the documents to new folders and having independent programs like KDE, Fx, or whatever to import user settings from Windows users wouldn't it be more of a application problem?

Well.. Not copying documents, that could be implemented as something automatical during installation, but it would potentially slow it down very much. If the user did import settings using some app provided with OS - like Macs, then it would require constants updates to meet the standards of all the apps it would be importing settings to. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (invent00r) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360914 http://osnews.com/thread?360914 Writing the code to be able to migrate from one version of an OS to another is not easy (especially if changing architectures), but it has to be done.

I’m saying the same goes with data. Importing data from one application to another, on different OSes is not easy -- but it needs to be done, otherwise there is no option of migration, and Linux needs migrations. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360925 http://osnews.com/thread?360925 use Opera.

It may be too smart for some users but it's still the best browser, hands down, I have ever used. With Opera Link, my bookmarks and settings (and I mean ALL settings, profile, etc.) are syncronized over multiple machines (and multiple OSen) with no effort on my part. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kenji) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360930 http://osnews.com/thread?360930 Sync across platforms, sweet. Is Opera managing that all by itself or does it first sync to a website then back down to the other machines? Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jabbotts) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360932 http://osnews.com/thread?360932 Opera uses a sync server, although I don't know how the back end works. It's all automatic, you just need an account on the server. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kenji) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360952 http://osnews.com/thread?360952 I use:
http://www.foxmarks.com/
on multiple computers and multiple browsers, but it works best with Firefox and has the most features. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (atopuzov) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360956 http://osnews.com/thread?360956 Foxmarks, or Xmarks as it's now called, is definitely the best solution for maintaining a single list of bookmarks across multiple browsers/computers. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Novan_Leon) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360991 http://osnews.com/thread?360991 I think you guys are missing the point.
Whilst its helpfile to show that there ARE ways to migrate firefox bookmarks.

People arn't always prepared to make migration from one platform to another into a research project. When a feature like this isnt built in it could mean 5min on google or 30min of dicking around.

Agree that software migration is useualy a chore, though I get a bit fed up with how people continuously judge new products by their migration path from other mainstream software. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ideasman42) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?360997 http://osnews.com/thread?360997 Maybe it's just me, but this article really passed my by completely. Because I've run Debian GNU/Linux on PowerPC, Alpha, Sparc, ARM, x86, AMD64 for more then 10 years. There really isn't anything special about it, everything just works. :-) All applications I use are in Debian, so they all can be compiled for the architectures supported by Debian (and they are just an apt-get install away). There really isn't any migration.

You just do dpkg --get-selections and install the other machine and install those packages there too and copy your home directory and done.

What migration ? CPU ? Versions ? Upgrades ? It all just works. :-) I know Debian spoiled me. ;-) Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Lennie) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?361001 http://osnews.com/thread?361001 This is both a pro and con of unix in general.

The basics tools and structure stay the same between versions, but almost all original approaches to problems (dbus, pulseaudio) end up almost tacked on top, apart from the system and distinct from the unix philosophy.

This makes migration between versions easier in the short term, but also ensures that re-architecting of the system, like from 9 to X or 95 to NT, can never happen. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (TObYv) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?361006 http://osnews.com/thread?361006 Your kidding right ?

Like Windows doesn't have that problem ? Some people have said: 50% of the code of Windows and it's associated parts are compatibility layers and old code that will is very hard to take out.

Just take any 'modern' Windows, all files in the Windows-directory are still in 8.3 format and a progra~1 directory still exists.

I've never seen any Unix with such a file-system specific backwardscompatibility problem.

I actually think Unix-like operating systems are doing a lot better in that regard. A lot of current Unix-like (software) is open source and this means a lot of the upstream applications in distributions like Debian get a patch from their downstreams to support newer libraries/API's, I actually think a lot less is left behind. People often discuss the duplication in the Open Source world, but patches from Ubuntu end up in Suse, patches from Suse end up in RedHat, patches from Fedora end up in Debian, etc.

And what is wrong with running deamons for specific tasks like dbus or pulseaudio ? It's better when it's seperate, because it can easiliy be replaced. Just an example, who still runs Sendmail, other then a few large users ? OK, some people who care for a certain type of license in their base-installation (OpenBSD for example, but they are busy replacing it with their own opensmtpd). Why is that ? Because it's just pipes, files, sysctl's and text. Any part can easily be replaced.

Could you please explain what you mean with distinct from the unix philosophy, maybe I just misunderstood. :-)

Maybe you were thinking of Plan 9 or something like that ? Many of it's ideas have already found a place in current Unix-like operating systems. OK, maybe unionfs isn't such a great implementation. But /proc is their in Linux. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 08:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Lennie) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?361020 http://osnews.com/thread?361020 *nix systems are more straightforward to migrate/upgrade between versions, because few if any changes are ever made on a 'unix' level i.e. the bare iron. the /etc directory was there in 1987, 89, 99, 2009 and I'll wager it will be there in 2019.

The linux kernel being distinct from libc distinct the gnu userland etc., and so system wide changes just can't happen, they just aren't practicable.

Nobody controls the whole OS from boot -> shutdown like, say, the MacOS or NT teams would. Even the BSD teams don't have direct control over more than the core utilities. This is not a bad thing IMO!

One side-effect is that us *nix users will probably never need to go through the sorts of migrations mentioned in the article, something that you can testify. A unix system will be a unix system, forever and ever :-)

This is good in terms of upgrades, continuity and predicability. I for one won't enjoy upgrading one night to find /etc merged into some binary registry :-)

But this also means that there will never be a quantum leap moment like 98 to XP for the linux community. No big changes, rearchitecting linux to be a BeOS or even a Plan 9.

Nothing against pulseaudio, dbus etc. as daemons, but they do not sit in /dev as *nix intuition suggests. There is nothing specifically unix about them, they would feel just as home as an NT service.

Unionfs on netbsd has always frozen for me, and /proc is useful to help create unportable scripts^W^W job security ;-) Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (TObYv) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?361025 http://osnews.com/thread?361025 Thanks, I see how it works now. I like the feature being native rather than a plugin though my own apprehensive would be with including an unknown third party in my data storage.

For the Mozilla family, I believe there is a flicker/facebook kind of site for browser bookmarks. Actually, if that's still around it must support the various popular options. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jabbotts) Comments