November 10th, 2005 by eyal | Filed under Techie. | 
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Further to my experience with Linux, I am now on a Windows-free machine. Addmitedly not entirely by choice - I needed to lend my laptop to someone so I’m on the desktop for a while. That made me realize that I’ve actually got quite accustomed to Linux and hardly used Windows anymore even when I had it installed. This also lit another lightbulb, while using my office (Win) machine I actually missed some of the apps I got used to on Linux. So here’s a partial list which will probably be updated occasionally.
Linux applications and other features I wish I could use on Windows:
KAlarm - a really nifty alarm proggy which does nothing else other than alarm but does it really nicely. I use it while trading to remind me to check charts and update orders so it has an alarm set for 5 days a week to repeat every 30 minutes starting at 10am for 6 times (until 1pm)
AmaroK - media player, podcast, music library manager and loads of other things. I know a lot of people have asked the AmaroK people to make a Windows version. Nothing is conceretly scheduled yet though.
Writer (Gnome) - fast, simple like notepad but.. with tabs
Preview of files - images and video files show as thmbnails whether in a folder or on the desktop and open up a preview when you hover over them
Akregator - a really nifty and well thought through RSS reader which downloads feeds, has customizable views, built in viewing tabs, custom right/left and middle click actions etc.
Multiple desktops and multiple sessions - this is a really nice and sorely missed feature. Nothing like clicking on a square on your bottom panel to switch to a fresh new desktop environment
No rebooting needed
No anti-virus running / updating / beeping / propmting etc.
No anti-sypware running / updating files etc.
The ease of changing themes
Windows applications I wise I could use on Linux:
DirectX based Games.
IB TWS AutoUpdater
So as you can see, nothing really fancy or revolutionary about Linux desktop environment but it’s the small things which make it really a pleasure to use.
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What software are you using to trade on the Linux side? Is it a Java based app? Do you know of any trading software for Linux?
Hi Brian,
QCharts runs perfectly on Linux using Wine HQ and InteractiveBrokers’ TWS platform runs natively as it is a Java program. Not sure about others.. what do you use?
I am currently using Medved w/Ameritrade on a Windows box which is adequate for my needs. However, I will be switching to Linux soon and I am also in the market for a new broker/datafeed.
Do you have or could you make some screeshots with your tradng set up running? I would love to see that.
I would recommend that you give these a try:
Kanotix distro (if you prefer KDE)
Gnoppix distro (if you prefer Gnome. I have not tried this one but it’s based on Knoppix so it should be good)
Do some research and see if any other trading platforms work on linux or you can just give the QCharts/IB combo a try.
Hello mr trader
I am trying out Ubuntu these days. I would like to get my IB account running on Ubuntu, and I have looked at their unix download for TWS, but I don’t uunderstand what I’ve got to do to install it.
Would yuou be able to help me?
Thanks
Hi there, there’s no real install. All you need to do is extract the files into a directory and then run the command IB shows on that page in a consol (or write a 2 line script which you can click to run it). From what I remember Ubuntu doesn’t have Java pre-installed from the CD so make sure you install that first. Hope this helps, drop me a line if you need any other help.
Btw, what are you planning on using for charting if at all?