SoK/2025/StatusReport/Anish Tak

Project Abstract

The project aims to help users migrate from Windows to GNU/Linux by analyzing their system specifications, asking relevant questions, and recommending a ranked list of distributions based on their preferences.

Deliverables

• A MVP (Minimum Viable Product) that recommends a ranked list of distributions to the users switching from windows to linux

Mentors

• Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss ([@joseph:kde.org])
• Snehit Sah ([@flyingcakes:kde.org])
• Aakarsh MJ ([@aakarshmj:matrix.org])

Weekly Progress

Week 1

• Discussed criteria for recommending distributions.
• Decided to ask 4-5 questions without excessive technical details.
• Explored distributions suitable for beginners, including Kubuntu, Fedora KDE, Linux Mint, and Lubuntu.
• Started working on the recommendation engine logic.

Week 2

• Decided on parameters to rate distributions:

 # Ease of installation
 # Old hardware support
 # Good documentation
 # Community support
 # Updates

• Finalized JSON format for questions and CSV format for distribution weights.
• Chose local processing over server-side for privacy and efficiency.
• Decided to use PySide6 + Kirigami for the project.

Week 3

• Set up the basic repository on KDE Invent.
• Implemented the basic UI.
• Worked on hardware detection using WMI and psutil.
• Discussed filtering methods for the recommendation engine:

 # Agreed on using a cosine similarity model.
 # Treating each distribution as a vector.
 # Calculating similarity with the user preference vector.

Week 4

• Basic recommendation engine operational using dot product; switching to cosine similarity.
• Majority of the desktop client UI completed.
• Improved the questionnaire and refined the algorithm by adding a penalty criterion.
• Researched driver and external hardware support.