Transferring data from a Unix SCO server to Red Hat Linux 3.0

Transferring data from a Unix SCO server to Red Hat Linux 3.0

I have an SCO Unix server. How do I reformat it to Linux? I purchased Red Hat Linux 3.0. Once I get Linux installed, how do I transfer software and data from another Linux server to the newly formatted one?

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SCO Unix was the first version of Unix I ever worked on. Many people don't know that 15 years ago, that was pretty much the only option one had if they wanted to install a Unix system on a PC. Ah, the good old days. Anyway, all you need to do is install your version of Linux. When it partitions the system on the set-up, it will ask you if you're sure you want to erase all partitions on your system, so just say "yes." Alternatively, you can always use fdisk on SCO Unix and blow away your partitions, but it's not really necessary.

If you want to transfer the data from another server to this one, there are many ways you can do this. You can FTP, use r commands to copy your data, or even better, get NFS running on your systems so that you can just cd to that NFS mounted directory and copy data to wherever you want. FTP is the easiest way of transferring data, provided you have set-up your network and both boxes can see one another. NFS will give you the most flexibility.

Regarding software: you will more than likely have to reinstall whatever software is on that machine. Software in most instances reside in many different directories. Depending on the type of software, they usually must be run with some kind of set-up script that will install your software and also setup your operational environment for that application. Even if you are convinced that you could copy a specific software application, you need to be aware of any licensing issues. If it is not open source, you may need a license for the software you are installing.

This was first published in March 2006