AviDardik.com

It has been almost a week now since I did the deed.
It takes some time to build a system that suits your needs. I have to research a lot, and install components, in order to get my system to be able to do everything I could with Windows XP.

So what is there to install?
Well, file sharing of course!
I've been using eMule for years now – What can I do on Linux?
The first application I've found was mldonkey – God, it was so awkward to install and operate.
I swear I almost said – Screw that, I'm going back to Windows!
But – Then I've found aMule, which is an Linux eMule clone. It looks, and works, almost exactly the same. I'm very pleased with it now!
The cool thing was how very easy it was to install it. I simply ran:
$sudo apt-get install amule

Don't forget opening the appropriate ports on your firewall. I've easily done that with Firestarter.
(I love this app!)
Regarding BitTorrent, in Windows I've worked with Azureus, which is Java-based and works on Linux as well, so there isn't any problem with that.

Both filesharing apps installation instructions were found on the great guide I've already mentioned: Unofficial Ubuntu
4.10 Starter Guide – Go there if you need instructions of how to install them.
And that's it. Quickly and easily I have installed my file sharing apps.

Ok – Filesharing was covered now, and I was downloading stuff, BUT, how can I watch the movies?
In episode 2 I've installed all the movie codecs necessary to watch movies, but I never really checked – and apparently, Totem movie player which comes with Ubuntu, wasn't able to display the DiVX movies.
To remedy that I've installed VLC – Which I've used on Windows as well. VLC is an amazing Voodoo-like movie player. It ALWAYS play anything you throw at it, regardless of if you have the codecs installed or not.
It's so amazing you can even watch partially downloaded movies with it! (The *.part files
eMule/aMule create)
I've installed it using the cool Synaptic program, which is sort of a GUI frontend to apt-get. Very easy and straightforward. I opened Synaptic up, ran a search for "vlc", and found the core program, plus various frontends.
Now I can actually watch the movies.

During my research I've learned MPlayer is quite big in Linux world.. I wanted to install that too.
Unfortunately, the apt-get installation can't run on Ubuntu, don't know why.
Of course I wasn't the only one that has noticed that.
An amazing and rich Ubuntu source for help is the Ubuntu community forums site – I simply logged on to http://ubuntuforums.org and did some searching.

It's a very nice and welcoming forum and I have found an excellent solution to the MPlayer problem.
This discussion thread explains, step by step, how to install MPlayer. It even provides a shell script file that does everything!
Good job guys – Now I have MPlayer too!
I still can't seem to manage displaying Hebrew subtitles – But I can
live with that for an episode or two.. Unless someone reading this has a solution…? 

Doing all the above took some time, and I'm staring at my desktop all day, and then I figured what was bothering me.

With Windows I've used Samurize for a few years – A great free program to display all kinds of data right on your desktop – Date/time/emails/CPU usage/mem usage/temperatures etc etc.
It serves both a practical need (I want to see all this data on my desktop) and an aesthetic need (It looks REALLY cool!).

I've posted here just a few days ago about discovering SuperKaramba.
It was before I decided to move to Windows, and I've installed it on the server that runs my web site – Just for the kick of it.
It looked really nice, and does answer to all my needs – BUT – It's KDE only, while I'm using GNOME with Ubuntu.
(By the way – Can a GNOME desktop run KDE apps? If so how?)

I've searched and searched, and yes, I've found gDesktels.

Exactly wast I was looking for!

Not too much to explain – It simply does what Samurize does for Windows, Karamba for KDE and Konfibulator for OSX – It displays cool gizoms and information on your desktop!
As always, installation is super-easy. Just run synaptic and look for gDesklets.
You have two packages you need to download – One is gdesklets (The program itself, which doesn't actually show anything on its own) and gdesklets-data (Which are TONS
of differnent gizmos you can place on the desktop).
This is the post where I learned how to operate gDesktels.

Ahh..
After playing with this thing for a few hours, it looks good!
Here's a screenshot of my current desktop, gDesktels included:

To something else – one small thing to mention -  An example of
something small and trivial that with Windows I wouldn't even think twice about – Knowing the used/free space status of your hard drive.

This may sound a bit dumb for Linux veterns – But hey, I'm not new to computers, but how the hell can I see the status of my hard drive?!?
I know about the du and df command line commands, but they're quite quirky and unfriendly.

Long story short – A quick research and I've found gtkdiskfree.
A small, easy and straightforward app that I simply needed – Hard drive free/used space information in a clean, small GUI.
How come no one thought of adding it by default to the Ubuntu distribution? 
I think it something EVERY desktop installation should have.
There is of course an Ubuntu package easily installable, like all other Ubuntu packages. (Hint: Synaptic!)

And finally – The biggest issue I had written of in the previous episode – How to move all my Microsot Outlook into Thunderbird?
First of all the bottom line – There is absolutely no decent way
in Linux, that I could find, to import an Outlook PST file into Thunderbird or Evolution.
I've done a research on this subject, and have come up with two possible ways to do this. Both unfortunately involve installing Windows to accomplish:

1.)The simplest way: I would have to install Windows, Outlook and restore my PST file.
Afterwards, I would have to install the Windows Thunderbird which does know how to convert the information to its own format.
THEN, simply copy the Windows Thunderbird information to the Linux Thunderbird, which would complete the procedure.

2.)The second option involves a man-in-the-middle IMAP email server.
This would require me, again, to install Windows and Outlook. Define the IMAP server as an account in Outlook, and drag all my emails to the IMAP server.
Afterwards, simply return to Linux, fire-up Thunderbird, define the IMAP server, and drag all the emails to the local folders.

There you go, two options, both are valid and doable.
I tend to go with option 1, since the IMAP server seems like more of a hassle..

Since I have to install Windows and Office, I didn't actually do it yet, I need some more time to do this.
But I don't foresee any problems with this implementation – I'll report in the next episode. 

Generally – It has been a good experience so far, but I still have much more to learn and experiment with.
I have to be honest and admit – On two different occasions I had an urge to go back to Windows.
When something didn't work right, something that on Windows I wouldn't even think on twice – A thought has passed my mind – "What the hell do I need this crap for?! Why should I waste my precious time on re-learning things I've done for 20 years? Why should I be wrestling with this?"

I was really close to doing this, but luckily I held back. And things have a tendency to work out. And when they do, it's a very gratifying experience.

It's not
always easy, but be patient, I think it's worth it.