Ubuntu: Easy steps to install and use Notepad++ and IE on Ubuntu

I like using Notepad++, but it is a windows program and is not available for Linux. There are some jQuery Mobile apps that I need to test on IE. I need a Windows platform. But my primary laptop has Ubuntu.

The solution is to use Wine and boy does it taste good!

First install wine

# sudo apt-get install wine

Download the latest notepad++ installer from http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ and launch it using wine.

# sudo wine <download folder>/npp.xxx.Installer.exe

This will launch the Npp installer and you can complete the fairly simple installation. Thats it, you are done !

Now you can just launch Npp and its a touchdown !

# cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Notepad++

# ./notepad++.exe

There is a version of IE available too 

# cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Internet Explorer

# ./iexplore.exe

This IE scores pretty decent on www.html5test.com.

Now how about try installing other Windows apps on Ubuntu and having more fun...

Fixing Date, Time and Zone on RHEL 6 command line

Had to fix all time related issues on a remote RHEL 6 server which runs without any windowing system. Plain ol' command line. Documenting steps here for future reference:

Check to see if your date and timezone settings are accurate:
# date
# cat /etc/sysconfig/clock

The server I accessed had wrong settings for both the commands. Here are the steps I used to correct:

Find out your timezone from the folder /usr/share/zoneinfo
# ls /usr/share/zoneinfo

Mine was pointing to America/EDT instead of Asia/Calcutta

Update and save the /etc/sysconfig/clock file to
# sudo vi /etc/sysconfig/clock
ZONE="Asia/Calcutta"
UTC=true
ARC=false

Remove the /etc/localtime
# sudo rm /etc/localtime

Create a new soft link to your time zone
# cd /etc
# sudo ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Calcutta /etc/localtime
# ls -al localtime
Now it should show the link to your time zone

Set your hardware clock to UTC
# sudo hwclock --systohc --utc
# hwclock --show

Update your time from a NTP server (Red Hat NTP server used here)
# sudo ntpdate clock.redhat.com
10 Apr 22:08:27 ntpdate[25695]: adjust time server 66.187.233.4 offset 0.004185 sec

Finally verify the date now
#date --utc
Tue Apr 10 16:39:56 UTC 2012

#date
Tue Apr 10 22:09:58 IST 2012

Add the above ntpdate command in your server startup script or in a cron job to automatically set the system time. The list of ntp servers can be found here: https://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/StratumOneTimeServers