Nikhil Dev

I am back to my promotion of Linux for users. I have been working on a Linux box at office for more than a month and have never restarted the machine till now. The amazing thing is that it is as good as it was when I got it. I have worked with Dell in the Technical Support division and have been a rescue agent for friends for quite some time now. People have always complained to me about how slow their machines have become and how their brothers/sisters have screwed it up by installing some software. Well, its time that people realize that there is one permanent solution for this and this is what I will be talking about. The solution is simple. Switch to Linux. Reasons? Simple 5.

1. Security - Undoubtedly, the most secure computing environment you can work on. There is no need of an anti-virus or an anti-spyware. And it takes balls of steel to remotely screw a Linux machine. How cool is that.

2. Cost - The damn OS costs you nothing and runs on the most basic machines(even more than 5 years old ones). Almost all the software that you run on Linuxis for free and there is a replacement for almost all windows software that I will mention.

3. Hardware - I have tried Ubuntu on my 4 year old desktop and all the hardware is supported. And there is tons of support for forums online that you can use to fix things.

4. Administration - It requires hardly any administration. Just the basic installation and you are all set. All that a bummer might want to know is to click the button to update the libraries.

5. Dell - This is one move that I really appreciate from Dell. They are selling computer that run out of the box with all hardware supported.

One last thing which is my favourite is the software installation. I simply love my apt. Upgrading packages, adding repo’s and removing software has never been easier. It always makes sure that you have the latest software.

Now talking about the famous replacement that can help you with the most common tasks.

Windows: Internet Explorer
Linux: Mozilla Firefox

Windows: MS Outlook
Linux: Mozilla Thunderbird or Evolution

Windows: Solitaire
Linux: AisleRiot Solitaire

Windows: ITunes
Linux: Banshee or Amarok(My Favourite. checkout the auto retreival of album art. it kicks ass)

Windows: MS Word
Linux: OpenOffice.org

A final word. It will take some effort to get around the new environment. But trust me, the effort and patience is worth it. SWITCH.

One of the limitations that I was facing on using my Ubuntu workstation was the non availability of Internet Explorer for sites that show up well in Internet Explorer. I was aware of this thing called IEs 4 Linux but did not have the patience to install it. But it a big requirement now and I decided to make a compilation of notes on how to install it for various distros of linux. Below are the instructions to install it on several Linux platforms.

Installing on Ubunutu :-

1) Open a terminal

2) Open /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

3) Uncomment (or add) following lines:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy universe

4) Add this line:

deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt edgy main

5) Close gedit. Update and install wine and cabextract:

wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine cabextract

6) Download IEs 4 Linux and install

wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
tar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
cd ies4linux-*
./ies4linux

Installing on Fedora :-

Its even more easier now that its the YUM installer

Open a terminal. Log in as root to install wine and cabextract:

yum -y install wine*
yum -y install cabextract

Logout and install IEs 4 Linux with your normal user account:

wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
tar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
cd ies4linux-*
./ies4linux

Installing on Gentoo :-

Open a terminal. Log in as root to install wine and cabextract:

emerge wine cabextract

Logout and install IEs 4 Linux with your normal user account:

wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
tar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
cd ies4linux-*
./ies4linux

Installing on Debian :-

Debian Sarge needs some steps before you install IEs4Linux:

1) You need a rather recent wine and libxxf86dga1, get it from backports.org: in /etc/apt/sources.list, add:

#wine
deb http://wine.sourceforge.net/apt/ binary/

#backports
deb http://www.backports.org/debian/ sarge-backports main

2) Login as root and do:

apt-get update
apt-get install wine libxxf86dga1 libxxf86vm1 cabextract

3) Logout and login with a user account. Download and install IEs4Linux:

wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
tar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
cd ies4linux-*
./ies4linux

Everyone knows that Firefox is a much better browser to Internet Explorer. There was time when I used to try and use Firefox as my file explorer as well. But was not able to do it as Firefox used to treat the directory as an index page. But there was this article that I read on one of the website that lets you use Firefox as a file explorer. This is made possible using an extension called IETab that I use quite a lot. IETab allows you to change the rendering engine to Internet Explorer so that you can see pages that are optimized for Internet Explorer just like in Internet Explorer without having to use Internet Explorer. It can be downloaded from http://ietab.mozdev.org/.

Once you have that installed, you can always open firefox, click on the ietab icon in bottom right corner of the status bar and then type in your disk location in the address bar. Now for the best part. You can bookmark location just as if they were URLs and when you want to navigate, Just open the bookmark and click on the IETab icon again. Now thats what I call COOL!!!

Try Windows Vista without installing it on your PC. A new Microsoft Virtual Labs site lets you test-drive the Business version of the OS, right inside your browser.

The site provides a self-guided tour of Vista, dividing all its features into categories like safe, efficient and connected. Within each category you can view a video or take a test-drive of various features. When you opt for the latter, you effectively get Vista running in a window. You can poke around, try the new apps (like Sidebar and Windows Meeting Space) and so on.

Two catches: First, the test drive requires Internet Explorer 6 or later. Second, on my system the virtual-machine Vista ran dog-slow, though your mileage may vary. Even if you don’t plan to adopt Windows Vista when it ships later this month, chances are good you’ll end up with it eventually. This is a neat way to get familiar with the look and feel of the new OS.