Install Google Chrome web browser in Linux

Google has provided a pre-release version of its famed browser Google Chrome for Linux and Mac. However it is still very much in the development stage. You can download the latest builds of Google Chrome for Linux and Mac here.

All the same, if you want a stable Chrome web browser to work in Linux, then there is a work around. Codeweavers has released Crossover Chromium for Linux and Mac.

Download full version of Codeweavers software for free - One day only

We all know that spiraling gas prices throughout the world has put a strain on the economy. But instead of becoming melancholic about the whole situation, we should look at the brighter side of things. After all some good samaritan out there would do something to bring some cheer into our lives.

Take for instance CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White, who was so put off with the state of affairs in his country (USA) that he placed a challenge to the outgoing US president George Bush. And what was the challenge ? Well Jeremy placed six goals (He calls them lame duck presidential goals) which included the goal of reducing the price of gasoline to below a particular amount. And if any one of his goals were met before George Bush finished his term at office, then Jermey will, for one day, give away his flag ship products Crossover Linux Pro (For Linux and Mac) and CrossOver Games (Linux and Mac) to anyone for free. Guess what, the price of gasoline has indeed fallen to the level set by Jermey and George Bush is still the American President.

So for one day, more specifically October 28, 2008 which happens to be today, you and I get to download the un-crippled full version of the above mentioned Crossover products and get a valid license for the same, with one year support thrown in for free.

So head over to Codeweavers website and download your legal copy of Crossover products. Once you download the products, visit this page to get your free serial number.

Those who are not aware of Crossover software, it is a fine tuned implementation of WINE software which allows you to install and run Windows software natively in Linux.

Note: Due to high volume of traffic to the main Codeweavers website, you may download the trial versions of the software for Linux and Mac platforms from here. The trial versions can be unlocked to full versions with registered accounts when the main site comes back online.

Enabling Directx 9.0 in Linux using Wine

It is a foregone conclusion that Linux has made deep inroads into the Windows arena and has succeeded in providing a robust user friendly Desktop which any lay person can use. But there are still a few areas where Linux lags way behind Windows.One of them is Games.

The problem is that most commercial games worth their name are developed using a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft called DirectX. It is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video. And as with all things Microsoft, DirectX too runs only on the Windows platform.

The latest version of DirectX is ver 10. But there is hope around the horizon for those die-hard gamers who would love to run their favorite game in Linux. Now it is possible to install DirectX libraries albeit version 9.0 in Linux using Wine.

The Wine review blog has an elaborate article giving step-by-step details of how to install DirectX 9.0c in Linux under Wine. Finally you will be able to play those fabulous games which you have stored in your attic by installing them in Linux.

WINE - An open source project which could be the tipping point for wide scale adoption of Linux by the masses

A few days back, Google did something which took everyone by surprise. It released Picasa - a very popular and advanced image archiving tool that also includes a lot of photo manipulation features - for Linux, which till now only worked in Windows . But what was cleverly shielded from the average user was that Picasa released for Linux is the very same Picasa for windows but running on top of Wine - an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix. In fact any body who uses Picasa will not be aware that he/she is running a windows software in Linux unless it is pointed out.

Wine has been around for a long time now and there are even companies which operate for profit such as Codeweavers who sell a fine tuned version of wine to allow people to run Windows software on Linux. But what amazed me when trying out Picasa was the degree of integration of the software with the native OS. For the first time, a company has proved that it is possible to successfully package the windows software to work efficiently in Linux with minimal or no configuration needed at the user's end. Of course, Google has worked closely with the Wine developers to make this a reality. And a lot of code written by Google developers - 200 patches to be exact - have been contributed back to the Wine community.

Now here is the interesting fact. There are countless Windows software out there which is used on a daily basis by different sets of people but which does not command as much popularity as to get the free software community sufficiently excited to start working on a similar project. I myself was really fond of a free software called KeyNote which I was using on a regular basis on Windows. And I was a bit disappointed when I couldn't find a similar software in Linux. Wine project will give incentive to such people who are tied down to using their proprietary/free Windows only software to switch to Linux.

So the question is how is what Google has done different from say, what Codeweavers has been doing for so long? Well, Google has integrated wine with one particular software to make it seamlessly work in Linux where as Codeweavers is essentially a fine-tuned version of Wine which can be installed on Linux and it is up to the user to install and configure the necessary Windows software on top of it.

The need of the hour is for more and more companies to take a leaf out of Google's book and integrate Wine libraries with their Windows only software to make it work seamlessly in Linux. So tomorrow for example, if an Adobe releases a version of Wine lib integrated Photoshop for Linux platform the same way that Google has done for Picasa, then we would see more people embracing Linux. And as more and more companies come forward and ship their products with a self contained version of Wine to make them seamlessly run in Linux, then I would say it will snap the last thread which is holding back a large section of the users from ditching their proprietary OS for Linux. And Linux would achieve mass appeal.

At this stage some might have questions as to how it will affect the GNU movement. If something like this happens, then there will be both positive as well as negative effects for GNU community. The positive one being that a major section of the people would be exposed to GPL-ed software, start liking it and even cultivate a taste for the GNU philosophy. And the negative one being the free software community will still not be able to ween away people from using the proprietary software to which they are tied to.

And finally, will wide scale adoption of Linux bode the death of Microsoft ? Not really. Nobody can wish away a multi-billion dollar company. Microsoft will evolve itself like all great businesses do and move on to greener pastures. And along the way (hopefully) discard their unfair business practices and stop trying to monopolize the market.