It is moonlight for Silverlight under Linux

It is moonlight for Silverlight under Linux

As I was playing with Ubuntu and Firefox for a while I just observed that the default Silverlight plugin for Firefox goes to Go-Mono website powered by Novell. The silverlight implementation for Linux is called Moonlight and more details could be obtained from here.

Conflicting but Interesting Confirmation Dialog of Firefox on Ubuntu

Conflicting but Interesting Confirmation Dialog of Firefox on Ubuntu

I just observed a conflicting but an interesting confirmation dialog of Firefox on Ubuntu. The two points to note over there are:

1. Unlike Windows, The 'Cancel' button comes before 'OK' button.
   
2. Though the cancel button precedes the OK button the precedence or the default button behavior is still retained by OK button only.
   

Choice of Flash Players in Ubuntu Linux

Choice of Flash Players in Ubuntu Linux

Whenever we install a new Firefox browser and navigate to any website that contains flash movie plugins we would be prompted with a 'Missing Plugins' prompt and then the plugin finder webservice would help us locate the appropriate tools.

For Flash, the only tool that would returned by the webservice was Adobe Flash on Windows. In Ubuntu Linux, I just observed three flash movie players were offered to be installed in lieu of just Adobe. So I am no longer locked into a monopoly Adobe shop with respect to Flash movies.

Where is root in Ubuntu?

Where is root in Ubuntu?

The Unix and variants of the operating system are literally obsessed by one super power account called 'root'. Whilst I was playing with Ubuntu as many documentations showed me to use su but I didn't have the 'root' password. It was rather surprising. I was apprehensive of whether I messed up something with the installation but I was pretty sure that it did ask me a single username and password all through the installation process.

I did do a quick check of /etc/passwd file using

less /etc/passwd

and I found the root account there. So what is the password of 'root' account. After a little more digging into it, I found out that Ubuntu has more command called 'sudo' (similar to su (switch user)) which does the task. sudo prompts me the password for the username that I setup during the installation and the gap got filled up.

A Quick Date with Ubuntu Linux

A Quick Date with Ubuntu Linux

A client of mine wanted an enterprise application to be made specifically on Linux platform and specifically Ubuntu. With predominantly Windows exposure when I just searched the Internet for guidance with Ubuntu Linux, I came across a good Virtual Box tool from Sun (now Oracle) called VirtualBox. This is quite similar to Microsoft Virtual PC and the significant catch is that it is free. I just installed it and got Ubuntu Linux got up running. People sometimes say installing Unix/Linux is a true PITA however I think with the evolution of the operating systems and tools, the installation had been a real breeze.

Even this post I am drafting from within the Mozilla Firefox installed in Ubuntu. Please see the Help-About of Firefox for more details.

A Quick Peek Logout shows a false-positive message at Sify Mail

A Quick Peek Logout shows a false-positive message at Sify Mail

A while back we discussed about a weird combination of Sify Mail with Airtel Broadband. This is an interesting followup to the same. When you logon to Sify Mail and quickly do a logout it throws a false positive error message as below. I know I did logout and it was a graceful logout. Not sure what is causing this false-positive alarm to be triggered.