I have been a Linux user for quite some time -- about eight years. My husband and I have known each other since we were twelve, when our school's only computer was an Apple IIe attached to a dot matrix printer. We grew up together, bought our first computer together, and built our first home-grown computers together.

He has never used Linux. Sure, he's played Frozen Bubble a few times. He's shut down my computer during thunderstorms. That's it.

His desktop Windows machine is older, and truth be told, he uses it for games and web surfing. He just bought an MSI Wind for work and school, and plans on keeping most of the "work stuff" on there.

He is a Windows user, but Windows irritates him on regular basis. He has said (for years) he'd be happy to use Linux for internet and document creation, but he can't part with a couple of games.

Now, the time has come. He is ready. He has asked that his computer be set up as a dual boot machine. How did he reach this conclusion, and what needs to be done to get his computer ready for the Linux invasion? And if you find yourself in this same position, what do you need to do?

Dual booting Windows and Ubuntu and still need to share the same settings and data from Firefox and Thunderbird between your two favorite OSes? It's much easier than you think.

First you'll need a place to store the data which is visible in both OSes. If you have a separate FAT32 partition -- a strategy used by many a dual-boot wizard -- that's a great start! Create a directory on that partition called 'share' and inside that, create one folder for Firefox and one for Thunderbird.

Next, copy your current Firefox and Thunderbird data to the new directory. You can't merge your existing profiles from Windows and Linux so, you'll have to choose your favorite. Under Linux, the Firefox data you need will be stored in ~/.mozilla/firefox/ and the data for Thunderbird should be in ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/Profiles. Copy the data from those directories the new directory we created in the first step.

(If you're looking for your Thunderbird and Firefox data under Windows, you'll likely find it in C:/Documents and Settings/user/Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles/ )

Finally, you'll need to create a new profile under both the Windows and Linux versions of each program. The easiest way to open the profile manager in both applications is from the command line. In Windows you'll open the command prompt and run 'thunderbird.exe -profilemanager' and 'firefox.exe -profilemanager'. In Linux the applications have different filenames('mozilla-thunderbird -profilemanager' and 'firefox -profilemanager', but you'll notice it's still the same command line switch.

Use profile manager to create a new profile (and delete the old.. make sure you have a backup!) and set the profile directory to the newly created copy under that 'share' folder we created in step one. Presto! Now you're using the same data in Linux and Windows for your favorite browser and Email client.

Thanks Shevin!

MacScoop reports that it has obtained a document suggesting Apple will release a final version of Boot Camp for Mac OS X Tiger this Spring -- and that it could cost $30.

At the same time, Apple will be launching Mac OS X Leopard, which will include Boot Camp, so if you want the option to dual boot two operating systems, you'll have dual choices: purchase a copy of Boot Camp or upgrade to Leopard.

The beta version of Boot Camp has been around since April of 2006, and should still work for free until September. The final version is expected to support Windows Vista.

This follows news that Apple will be charging users $2 to enable 802.11n support in the Apple TV, and that the company could be charging more than twice the manufacturing costs for the upcoming iPhone. But then, does anybody expect a company like Apple to make money by giving away software or selling hardware with narrow profit margins?

Mac Virtualization software Parallels allows OS X users to run multiple operating systems simultaneously, much in the same way as VMware does for Windows, and has been building a solid reputation as a good alternative to Apple's Boot Camp, which allows a Mac owner to install Windows, but requires dual-booting and a separate partition. But what if you've been Boot Camping for awhile but want to switch to Parallels? Do you have to start from scratch? As it turns out, no. Though it's certainly no walk in the park, Ars Technica's Infinite Loop blog has some info on how you can back up your Boot Camp partition and re-create it as an identical Parallels virtual machine. Not for the faint of heart, but if you're sick of dual-booting, this might be right up your alley.

What with the advent of Boot Camp, booting Windows XP on a new Intel Mac has become all but passé, but what about Windows Vista? Over at the OSx86 Project forums they're working on it, with a modicum of success. I'm not at all clear on the technical details--and I suggest you do a little more research than I have before attempting--but apparently the Vista installer tries to eliminate the OS X partition unless you remove the Mac's 200MB EFI partition before doing the install. So what's next? My vote is for OS/2 Warp.

[Via Engadget]

If you dual-boot Windows and Linux and are sick of not being able to access data from your Linux partitions in Windows, then Ext2 IFS for Windows is what you've been waiting for. It's a driver that lets Windows natively mount Linux Ext2 and Ext3 filesystems just as if they were FAT32 or NTFS volumes.