Chatting and Web Browsing

Chatting



Keeping in mind the all-pervasiveness of Instant Messengers in today’s connected world, we have added the most commonly used messengers to PCQLinux 8.0. You will find Yahoo and MSN messengers out of the box in PCQLinux 8.0. These messengers get installed by default in the “Personal Desktop/Notebook” and “Workstation” installations. You can also add these packages at the time of package selection in the other installs. Alternatively you can deselect them from PCQLinux Specials >Personal Stuff section.

In case you wish to install them later, after installation is over, just put the PCQLinux 8.0 CD 2 in the drive and go to the /mnt/cdrom/PCQuest/RPMS/ directory and double click ymessenger-0.99.19-1.i386.rpm for Yahoo Messenger and amsn-0.71-1.noarch.rpm for MSN messenger. This will install the selected messenger for you. 

Starting Yahoo Messenger



To start the Yahoo messenger for the first time, go to the Program List, and select “Run Program”. Enter ymessenger and press Enter. This creates an icon on your desktop and starts the messenger window. The window asks you for your Yahoo id and password to login. Once you supply them and connect, you are ready to chat with your Yahoo friends.

Starting aMSN 



Starting aMSN (MSN for Linux) is very easy. All you have to do is click on Start>Extras>Internet>aMSN and it will start the messenger window of aMSN for you. You can start using MSN Messenger with the same interface as the Windows one. It even shows you the small blue gradiented popup window when a friend logs in or sends you a message, just like the Windows one.

Web Browsing 



For browsing the Web, Linux gives you many options. PCQLinux 8.0 contains Mozilla, as the default Web browser. Mozilla is installed in Personal Desktop/Notebook and Workstation installs. If you want to install it later, select “Packages” from the “system settings” menu, which shows you all the packages available in PCQLinux 8.0. Select Graphical Internet from the Application section and press the Update button. Mozilla gets it for you. 

Now if you have a direct Internet connection through a modem the browser will automatically understand it and start working.

However, in case of a proxy connection, you have to set it up as a proxy client. For that click the Edit menu of Mozilla, and then the Preference tab. Select the Advance setting in the dialog box. Enter the IP addresses and port of your Proxy server in the Proxy tab.

We have also included Macromedia Flash Player 6.0 This package gets installed automatically whenever you select “Personal Stuff” under PCQ specials in the Package Selection Screen at the time of PCQLinux installation. However you can always install it manually later on from PCQLinux 8.0 CD 2. From terminal console run following commands:

#cd /mnt/cdrom/PCQuest/RPMS



#rpm -ivh flash-plugin-6.0.69-6.i386.rpm

PCQLinux has two other Web browsers: Konqueror (part of the KDE desktop), and Lynx (a text-based browser). You can use either of these if you wish. 

PCQLinux also includes a list of some very useful websites. These are presented as links and will get activated once you fill in and submit the data collection form that comes up the first time you start a browser. 

Anindya Roy