Portable apps and linux

[wdhpr]

For those that enjoy having a computer on a usb stick IE: Portable apps and are using linux good news
After doing some looking around I found and option (not perfect) but for the most part it works.

You will need to have Wine installed. After that you will need to download portable apps from portableapp.com There are 3 versions 1.3 mb, 46 mb and 124 mb. From just the partable app application to the fully loaded version with 14 portable apps including open office. I chose the 46 mb version which includes among other things firefox and thunderbird. I then ported over my firefox and thunderbird settings using mozeback. I guess there or other ways to transfer settings.

Install portable apps onto your usb stick while in linux via the wine utility. That's it Works for me.
I wrote this thread using portable firerfox while in linux

Cheers
Wdhpr

[bk_7312]

Hi wdhpr, I downloaded the 1MB version which became 1.3MB after installing it, then I downloaded Firefox, Sudoku and Mines-Perfect. I install them while using Windows in case I can't install them using wine, then before rebooting to MEPIS, I tried all three. After rebooting to MEPIS, only Firefox and Sudoku worked fine, Mines-Perfect can't be launched at all. Well, it's understandable since wine is still not perfect, at least most part of it works. Thanks for sharing that wdhpr.

[wdhpr]

I found this website linuxfortravelers Which stated not all apps worked.
I downloaded the 46 mb portable app package. Yes it decompresses to arounf 125mb.
The mystery is, every single app worked including abi word. I thought I would try pokerth one of my favorite games. It worked too. Go figure..... lol

I did download and installed the latest version of wine from their website. This may have something to do with my success.

Cheers
Wdhpr

[bk_7312]

Originally Posted by wdhpr

I did download and installed the latest version of wine from their website. This may have something to do with my success.

That explains a lot, though the stable one (the one I'm using) is wine 1.0.1, the one you're probably using is wine 1.1.22. I'll give wine 1.1.22 a try some other time, right now I'm looking forward to see Leonidas release.

P.S - I've seem to have forgotten all about Wind-something...

[wdhpr]

One last note

Every single (windows) portable app works on my linux distro (mepis) and works well. Listning to my favorite tunes on mplayer while typing this. Firefox 3.5 is responding well. Just thought I would pass this along.

Cheers
Wdhpr

[pdc124]

Portableapps on a USB stick under ubuntu (karmic)

I get an error that it cant write to the Data directory
paul@zimmy-desktop:/media/41A8-D900/PortableApps/ThunderbirdPortable$ ls -la
total 352
drwx------ 5 paul paul 32768 2010-03-27 17:14 .
drwx------ 14 paul paul 32768 2010-03-27 17:13 ..
drwx------ 6 paul paul 32768 2010-03-27 17:14 App
drwx------ 6 paul paul 32768 2010-03-27 17:20 Data
-rwxr-xr-x 1 paul paul 8859 2009-03-19 21:52 help.html
drwx------ 4 paul paul 32768 2010-03-27 17:14 Other
-rwxr-xr-x 1 paul paul 144832 2010-01-21 14:58 ThunderbirdPortable.exe
paul@zimmy-desktop:/media/41A8-D900/PortableApps/ThunderbirdPortable$

root@zimmy-desktop:/media/41A8-D900/PortableApps/ThunderbirdPortable# chmod 777 Data
chmod: changing permissions of `Data': Read-only file system
root@zimmy-desktop:/media/41A8-D900/PortableApps/ThunderbirdPortable#
s

so I need to change the file permissions on /Data

[wdhpr]

so I need to change the file permissions on /Data

That would be my guess as well.

I dont use thunderbird on my portable apps because my linux system has thunderbird already installed. Because I dual boot between Windows and linux I handle the bulk of my email in windows. I do however sync my email to the portable version So I can access them if the need arise.

I like being able to use my portable firefox browser. Because of my many bookmarks and add-ons can be synchronized while in windows and therefore kept up to date.

Cheers
Wdhpr