Tag Archives: Living with Linux

Adobe Reader on Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) 64 Bit

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I will try to keep this short and simple. Adobe reader is needed only if you need to do forms and such advanced things in PDF files. Otherwise, Ubuntu comes with default tools such as evince to do all kind of usual reading of PDF files. If your system is a very old one, you can even try installing xpdf package.

That being said, let’s go ahead and install Adobe reader. First, download the .bin file from adobe website : http://get.adobe.com/reader/ . Once the file is downloaded, issue the following commands to install it.

Inside a terminal :

chmod a+x acro...bin
./acro...bin

and follow on-screen instructions.

If you are running a 64 Bit version of Ubuntu, you might need to install a few 32 bit libraries to get it working. Specially if you are facing errors like : “acroread: error while loading shared libraries: libgdk_pixbuf_xlib-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory”

sudo aptitude install libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0:i386
sudo aptitude install libgtk2.0-0:i386

Adobe Reader should work fine now. Enjoy 🙂

My Linux PC at Home

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At home, I am using a PC with Debian Etch installed on it.

PC configuration :
Celeron 1.8 Ghz Processor
1 GB RAM
160 GB Harddisk
DVD Writer
and a 17″ TFT Monitor

While this isn’t a gamer’s PC or even a high-end one, it is enough for my (and my wife’s ) needs.

We have all our songs/photos/movie collection on this PC apart from my work related stuff.

Our usual development activities consists of HTML, PHP and Javascript. This PC runs the following services to support us.

Apache – Web Server
MySQL – DB Server
Exim – Mail Server
OpenSSH – Remote Access & File Transfer

We also use a couple of softwares regularly. Most of these softwares have Windows versions also Available. So you don’t need to be disappointed if you are using a Microsoft Windows Operating system..Go check them out !!

Geany – Editor for PHP/HTML/Javascript
RapidSVN – Subversion client.
Gimp – Photo/Image Editor.
OpenOffice – For documents/spreadsheets/presentations
GnuCash – Tracking finance.
F-Spot – Photo collection organizer
Rhythmbox – Music Player/Organizer
Mplayer – Video Player

We do play games too. Mostly board games and puzzles. I like playing “frozen bubble” and my wife is addicted to “bomberclone” ! 🙂

I do not need to worry about spending a fortune to buy all commercial software to get my things done. All these software comes absolutely FREE ! We only paid for the PC Hardware. 🙂

Hello Linux / Opensource

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I got introduced to Gnu/Linux sometime back in 1999 when I was working as a computer hardware technician. Our customers were all using Windows 95/98/NT and we were supposed to install Windows and other applications after assembling the PCs. We were also handling customer support calls. One day, I got a copy of REDHAT Linux 6 from some pile of CDs we had at our assembling desk and I thought I would give it a try.

At first, it did look a bit confusing and there was no one to guide me. So I refered some documents I got from internet and went on installing the OS with all basic options. After a few days playing around with Linux desktop, I thought “Oh this does pretty much everything same as windows”. I started to dig out more information about this new OS and I realized that it is not really the desktop that I am seeing on the top. It was a pretty good software which allows me to do many other things which Windows could not do out of the box. As I continued my learning, my collegues were asking me what the hell I am doing with that PC in my free time. They were amazed to hear that this OS could accept the change of IP address without a reboot !

Many months passed and I was already very comfortable with Linux. I tried out different distibusions, I tried following the HOW-TO documents in the internet to set up my own webserver….

…years later, now my Linux skills are earning me respect among my tech-peers and a good pay cheque. I use and advertise Linux and Open source. I always ask my friends and collegues to switch to the Open Source software. If you have an absolute necessity to use a commercial closed source software, go ahead and use it. But if you could get the job done using the open source, why not? Trust me, it is not illegal to dump windows… 🙂