This is part 5 of my using Linux for everything blog posts. As a web developer I started to use Photoshop. As I started to use Linux I realized that I could not use Photoshop to its fullest. So I then heard of GIMP. It is a nice tool and it can get the job done. I just did not like the interface that came with it. I also missed some features that were in photoshop.

As GIMP has grown it has started to become an app I could see myself using. So for this part I would feel comfortable switching to pure Linux.

This is part 4 of my using Linux for everything blog posts. As of right now my main job is writing Selenium automation using Java and my side job is web development. So could Linux handle all of this with no issues. The answer is no and I will tell you why. As a web developer selenium developer I need to test sometimes against Internet Explorer and or Safari. You can look in my previous post to read the reasons to why this is not possible for me to emulate. Other than that I can install Eclipse and Java in Linux with no issues. So writing my code I can be in Linux.

Web developing in Linux I again have no issues. I can pull up VIM and I will be just fine. Even though I might miss TextMate since I have recently fell in love with it.

So this is part 3 of my replace Linux everywhere blog. In this part we will be discussing web browsing. So looking at browsers the only major browser that is not in Linux is Internet Explorer. Now yes I could install Wine or some other emulator to solve this. But this is not going to solve this issue. Using Wine there is something in me that states are we really seeing Internet Explorer.  Now the only reason I need internet explorer is for work. With me at the time doing QA work I need to test the quality of a website in Internet Explorer. Now to be honest I have the same issue in Mac so Linux is not alone here.

So, is there something I am missing here? Is there an solid option that would allow me to get the real Internet Explorer experience? Look forward to hearing your comments.

So continuing on with my series of the question if Linux can replace it all, we are going to talk about email. For me I use e-mail at home and at work. For home I use Gmail and at work I use Exchange. So with Gmail I have nothing to worry about but with Exchange well there might be an issue. I have tried using Evolution and it is very close but it just fails when it comes to Exchange.

Now maybe it has changed since I last used it but man, when I tried to bring down my exchange account it just froze up. This was running Ubuntu 10.10. Now to be honest it was running in Parallels on my Mac which might be the cause. Though I am not sure it is. I have talked about it with a few others and they have stated the same issues.

So am I missing something? Is there another app that can save the day? If so please comment and or send me a tweet.

So a colleague and I have a long commute and we are always talking about Linux and technology. We listen to podcasts after podcasts and in my mind I have been thinking about something. Could I replace everything with Linux? I am talking about computers, tablets, and or cell phones. I guess first let me show you a small list of what I currently do with my computers.

• Email
• Browsing
• Web/Java/Selenium Development
• Graphic design (Small amount)
• Media
• Work
• etc…

I could go on with some more but this is a good list for now. I would find it very difficult to switch from my Mac to Linux. Now I know I am pretty much using Linux but it is fine tuned and very hard to call Linux/Unix anymore. Please I am not trying to write more blogs about Mac vs Linux. I want to use these next few blog posts to possibly learn about Linux apps that might make it easier to replace other computers with Linux.

So what are the people’s opinion on this? Do you think you could replace your computers, tables, and or cell phones with a Linux device? Please stay tuned to my blog as I will make posts for each bullet points I specified above.

If you have used SVN in the past in the Windows world, you are probably pretty use too TortoiseSVN. It is a nice tool that integrates itself into the Windows shell. In the Linux world you probably were using the command line to do these things. Hey I understand I was doing that on my work computer when it was running Linux. I have something in Linux that will get rid of this. RabbitVCS is a client that integrates itself into Nautilus. It is pretty close to being a clone to Tortoise and I really like it.

So as doing automation as my everyday job I find myself in the Eclipse IDE all day. Now there are lots of advantages of using Eclipse but I hate that it is so slow. One day I got so frustrated that I decided to try using my favorite editor TextMate, to do my job. So I thought I would discuss both applications and what I like and disliked. Please post comments or reply to me on twitter with your comments.

Eclipse
This is a very popular tool that a lot over developers use for Java programming. It has a lot of features to autocomplete method names. Code refactoring is another nice tool that it has. If you are working with Maven and TestNG it is also supported as well. The two biggest issues with Eclipse is that it is slow and a big resource hog. Other than that it is not that bad.

TextMate
This is a popular text editor for the Mac. With its bundle support it is a very nice tool to use. TextMate does have bundles that cover Maven and some TestNG. The issues that I come up with is that autocomplete is limited in TextMate. If I am referencing a page object and I want to call a method of that page object, there is no autocomplete for that. This is the biggest reason why I have trouble using TextMate as my editor for Selenium code. I like TextMate cause it is small and is not a resource hog.

Again if I am missing something with TextMate, please let me know. I would love to be able to get rid of Eclipse all together.

One of the things that a lot of people over look when coding is adding comments to it. Everyone should comment their code and there is no reason why you do not need comments. Even if you are writing something for your own use you still should comment on that code. Here are a few reasons why you should comment:

• Makes reading code easier.
• Helps someone understand your code when they are new or have not read it recently.
• It shows that you understand the standards of coding

Commenting is one thing that I myself find that I lack but I work on it to make sure its there. I am not stating that you have to comment every line but you should try to keep it to every 4 to 5 lines. Be brief in your comments and get to the point. So look at your code and see if there are comments there. If not you should start to add some. I hope this helps.

I wanted to get into showing you the basics of TextMate. If you talk to a lot of Apple users and ask them what is the best text editor they will say TextMate. At first I said wow paying for a text editor and I wish I did not do that. If you want to see more go ahead and view their site or click the watch video button below.

You can see TextMate in action here.

One of the things that I sometimes have to do is move an SVN repo to another server or you just want to back it up. This tutorial will show you how to do this.

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svnadmin dump /pathToYourRepo > reponame_dump

Example: svnadmin dump /var/svn/mywebsite > mywebsite_dump

So now you want to go move this file to your new server and create your subversion repo. Make sure you use the same name as the old one. Go to folder where you uploaded your dump file to and do the following:

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svnadmin load /pathToYourRepo < reponame_dump

Example: svnadmin dump /var/svn/mywebsite < mywebsite_dump

So there you go. In this tutorial I did not include setting up the subversion server cause I made the assumption you know how to do this since you already have an SVN repo setup.