Migrix is a pre-installer for Linux distributions, designed to ease the transition from Windows to Linux. Migrix is a Windows application that gathers information about the current system setup for use during the installation.
Who is Migrix for? Migrix is designed to be used by end-users. It therefore has the same usability requirements as any other application. On the other hand, Migrix will be useless unless it is integrated with a distribution installer. Migrix needs to have a clean front-end, as well as a useful and extensible back-end. Migrix is licensed under the GPL, with the underlying NSIS available under a less restrictive license.
Platform. Migrix supports all the Windows platforms that NSIS does (Windows 95, 98, and ME as well as NT, 2000, XP, and Server 2003). Our focus should be on the older of these platforms (those that are most likely to be upgraded in the near future). If Linux is cheaper, more reliable, and easier to migrate to than Windows XP or Server 2003, it will become more prevalent. Linux already meets the first two points in almost all cases, Migrix is designed to handle the third.
Migrix describes the migration tool itself, and any associated scripts. Since Migrix should be fully integrated with a distribution installer, branding is not particularly important. In fact, to avoid overwhelming users with naming jargon, distributions should change the relevant variables to ensure that Migrix is distribution-branded. Users don't need to know that their migration tool is developed separately from the rest of the distribution.
Today's Linux installers do not migrate from Windows efficiently or easily enough. For example:
Hardware detection. Linux installers' ability to detect hardware has improved dramatically in the last few years. However, it's not perfect. When installing Linux from scratch, this is usually acceptable. But, when migrating from Windows, it doesn't make sense to probe from scratch. Before installing Linux, we should ask Windows about the (exotic or hard-to-detect) hardware it contains. In the worst case, we can detect unsupported hardware early and warn the user before s/he continues the installation.
Package selection. For computer newbies, figuring out what packages to install can be a difficult task. For Windows-savvy users, finding out Windows-Linux application equivalency is unnecessarily complicated. Instead of making users figure out these choices from scratch, we should try to provide reasonable defaults based on Windows' setup. For instance, if a user has Winamp installed under Windows, they likely will want XMMS installed. If instead a user has iTunes installed, Rhythmbox is probably a better bet. Again, at worst, we can say before installation: "The application Microsoft Access does not have a Linux equivalent. Do you still want to install Linux?"
System setup. Installing Linux usually involves questions like "What language do you want your system to operate in?" or "What's your time zone?" or "How's your network set up?" With Windows set up, we usually have the answers to these questions. At the least, we should use existing options as defaults.
These are just a few ways in which a pre-migration tool could make the Linux installation experience more pleasant. If we want Linux on the desktop to be viable, we should challenge ourselves to make installing Linux from Windows as easy as (or easier than) upgrading from one version of Windows to another. While these two tasks aren't identical, the user's motivation is the same in both cases. We should work to let Windows users simply "upgrade to Linux."
Programming Language. Since Migrix uses NSIS as a base, it is coded in NSIS's scripting language. This eliminates the need to design a GUI from scratch, and has several other benefits discussed below.
Registry Access. One of the main reasons for using NSIS as a base is its excellent support for reading the registry. Since detecting installed programs inevitably involves the registry, this is vital.
Storing Information. The success of this project relies on being able to pass data from Windows to the Linux installer. It seems to me that this should be done by writing a lengthy INI file into C:\. Then, when the installer starts, it could try mounting each existing partition read-only to check for this file.