If you do even a bit of website building weather for you own site/blog or for others you are destined to get the cross browser developement headache. Not only do websites look different in Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Internet Explorer, Safari, but they even look different in Windows and Linux using the same browser.

If you build a lot of sites, let me show you a setup you can use to test on multiple browsers. First of all, I gather you already have Windows installed, or if you don’t because you’re a linux user, go ahead and install it first. Once done, you can install the new Ububtu Linux from Windows itself, without the need to muck about in boot screens and so on.

Now, you have two systems installed, all you need to do is get all the browsers you can into these systems. WIndows has IE by default, so you need to install the others only. I recommend installing three browsers here, Firefox, Opera and Safari. Firefox and Opera have large fan bases, and Safari is sort of a middle ground between installing OS X.

Head on over to your linux system and if you have Ubuntu, Firefox will be on there by default. The options you have here are much mor evaried. The good news is that most problems occur between IE and all other browsers and you don’t have to think about IE in linux too much. The bad news is that there are many more browsers used. Apart from numerous smaller browsers you can install Galeon and Konqueror, many Linux distros come with these as defualt. Galeon is based on the gecko engine (like Firefox), so you won’t have many problems there.

The main difference I’ve seen with Linux vs WIndows is the differnece in text size, usually smaller in Linux. This can cause some elements to shift about, but if you have some experience with IE problems, solving these will be a cicnh.

Today I was quite perplexed, as I could not unmount a drive in Ubuntu. The message was that I needed to be root to do it. No problem, you can either log in to your root user account (discouraged for security reasons), or you can use sudo.

Sudo is essentially a command for doing something with elevated privileges. Let’s say you want to move a file, but you can’t because only the admin can. In this case, you can type the same command for moving the file, but with typing “sudo” in front, you can perform that action as a root user.

So my problem was that try as I might I could not find the command to unmount. Mount was fine, it’s simply “mount”, but try as I may nothing worked. I found a bas command list in the end, and it turns out that the command for unmounting a drive is “umount”. I don’t know why the “n” needed to be omitted, but at least I found it.

If you need a long list of commands you can use, take a look at these bash commands, you will find some useful stuff in there. I am finally realizing why the terminal is a good idea!

I just made the jump to Linux, partly planned and partly forced. After playing around with some disk partitioning I managed to completely loose the ability to boot into Windows, but luckily I had a Linux on an external drive. I decided to wipe my internal hard drive of Vista, I installed XP on a 12Gb partition (I’ll still need it for work probably) and I gave the remaining space to Ubuntu 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon.

I think many people are daunted by the leap and really they shouldn’t be. I also find it daunting, but look at some people in the older generation, for them Windows is daunted too, and I’ve seen 80 year olds with more PC skills than myself! If you have nothing to loose, why not go for it? Ubuntu is very user friendly, it is totally free and gives you tons of software options, all freeware.

My initial reaction to using Linux full time is much more positive than I thought it would be. I can access all my files from Windows, I just simply copied my wallpapers and they’re there, ready for application onto my desktop. Ubuntu also comes with Open Office installed, and while I am a big MS Office fan, it will do nicely as a replacement. Ubuntu also comes with TomBoy, an app I will definitely be discussing here on Hack Your Day, possibly the best productivity note taking app ever. My favorite feature is the add and remove programs part, you can select anything from the online database and it will be installed automatically.

Overall, Ubuntu makes the leap from Windows to Ubuntu much easier than you would expect. It puts you in a different, but overall familiar and comfortable environment. I look forward to bringing you guys some Linux news as well, and maybe further along the year some Mac stuff too. If you have any ideas, tips you would like to share, please do, I’m still way in over my head.