Ubuntu Wiki

Questions

I was asked the following questions when introducing new users to Ubuntu.

What about my firewall and virus checkers?

Linux is built to be secure from the ground up. A freshly installed Ubuntu system does not run any network services by default and so it is not susptible to

What about the Anti-spyware software that I need to run?

You generally don't have to run any.

How do I keep my Outlook Express email and contact list?

(I'm still looking into this one.) Only Method so far is to Install Thunderbird in windows use that to import settings from Outlook Express, the copy the Thunderbird profile over to Ubuntu and edit the Profiles.ini file

How do i keep my Firefox settings?

Copy the contents of C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles directory and these two files C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\pluginreg.dat, C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini under windows to ~/.mozilla/firefox/ under linux.

Example of the Windows directory structure would look like:

C:\
----Documents and Settings\
--------------------------<username>\
------------------------------------Application Data\
----------------------------------------------------Mozilla\
-----------------------------------------------------------Firefox\
-----------------------------------------------------------pluginsreg.dat
-----------------------------------------------------------profiles.ini
------------------------------------------------------------------Profiles\
--------------------------------------------------------------------------12ab34c.default\

Example of the Linux Directory Structure would look like:

~
---/.mozilla
-----------/firefox
------------------/12ab34c.default
------------------pluginreg.dat
------------------profiles.ini

Once you have done that you might have to tinker with the profiles.ini under linux to look like this:

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=12ab34c.default

As the Windows profiles.ini will look like this:

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/12ab34c.default
Default=1

Can I still use Skype and keep my Skype contents?

Yes you can, you save the user account stuff from windows C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Skype\<account> and then you copy it into ~/.Skype/<account> under linux. I have also heard that your contacts are stored on the Skype servers now, so when you log into your account from another PC and you contacts will be there.

This information is old and misleading Skype contacts are stored on Skype servers and all you have to do is login to skype to download them.