[Ldsoss] Linux News -- at least to me

[Scott Barber]

Tom gave you a great list for finance programs.

We run Ubuntu at home and when it was time to do taxes we just went
with the all online web-based turbotax.com. It's a much easier option
than trying to get a windows app to work with wine and it'll run on
what ever platform you want.

-Scott

On 4/24/07, Steven H. McCown <steven.mccown at gmail.com> wrote:
> All,
>
> I've tried most of the major Linux versions since 1997/8 and have always
> been frustrated by its complexity (as compared to Windows).  I always
> figured it out, but never wanted to spend my time debugging that which I
> wanted to 'just work'.  A couple of months ago, I started playing around
> with Ubuntu's beta (Feisty) and saw a huge improvement.  There are enough
> ads (I mean articles) for this, so I won't dwell.
>
> I still use Windows, but Linux is now my friend.  I need a graphic of a
> penguin waving a Windows flag, I guess.  Anyway, here's what happened.
>
> My wife's usb drive 'went bad' with a lot of important info on it.  I
> figured that a power failure or unplugging it before the safe removal
> process completed was the culprit.  I checked all the windows utils and
> found many that for $59.99 claimed to solve my problem.  This is an
> extremely rare occurrence, so I didn't want to pay real dollars if there was
> a free option.
>
> Next, I started looking for Linux apps and came up with several options.
> The options ranged from requiring a pretty intense understanding of how to
> calculating byte offsets in the partition table and writing missing values.
> The 1st rule of computer forensics is not to mess with the failing device,
> so I continued looking.
>
> Then, I came across a Linux command that allowed me to sector copy the usb
> drive to a single file on the computers hard disk.  I tried to mount the
> file as a drive, but couldn't because the partition table was corrupted.
>
> Finally, I found a free utility called "test disk" that allows recovery by
> analyzing the disk (image file) contents even when the partition table is
> bad.  It worked like a charm and I was able to recover every one of the 205
> word docs and text files.  Obviously, the names were not the originals, but
> every byte of the files' contents was recovered.
>
> This was an amazing thing (for a diehard Windows user) is that 1) it all
> actually worked, and 2) that it was completely free.  I did have to spend 45
> min or so to figure all this out, but I'm a CS guy and that's what we do for
> fun, anyway....
>
> At work, I haven't taken the time to setup the traditional dual boot.
> However, I found that VMWare Server is now being given away for free.  You
> have to register and get a license, but the price seems right.  My work
> computer is an Alienware 3.8 GHz laptop with 2 GB of ram, so I don't really
> notice any lag time.  That makes it really easy to try things out.
>
> I do have a question.  Is there a good Quicken-type replacement for Linux?
> Has tax software made it there, yet?
>
> Just wanted to preach to the choir for a bit...
>
> Steve
>
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