Yeah, you can perform an actual Whois Search for that domain name you’ve been wanting or to look up who owns that one whose site you’re browsing. All from your Ubuntu Desktop!

This can be a particularly good thing these days especially in light of the recent happenings with Network Solutions and their domain tasting stories like this one from Dave Zan in which he says:

Over the past 3 years or so, there have been reports from many people wherein they use a registrar’s domain availability search, don’t register the domain name on the spot for whatever reason, and find it taken before they get around to it. A common observation is some of them are released after 120 hours, creating the speculation it’s because of domain tasting.

This can be frustrating when you think you’ve got that perfect domain name in mind for your business or personal site and the registrar’s web site you used to check it’s availability scoops it up before you’ve decided to grab it yourself.

So, what to do? If you’re running Ubuntu Linux Desktop version 7.10 (not sure of previous versions of this writing) you can check on that domain name without worry of it being robbed out from under you.

Where and How

On your Desktop, go to System > Administration > Network Tools and click.

Once that loads, click on the Whois Tab and enter the domain name you want to look up. Next, click on Whois and the information will appear in the box below. I’ve included a screen-shot as an example.

You can also perform many other useful functions with Network Tools like Ping, Netstat, Traceroute, Port Scan, Lookup (really good for looking up a lot more information about a domain or mailbox, CPU, etc.) and Finger.

Ubuntu really has a lot to offer when it comes to a clean, simple desktop OS (operating system) that “just works” right out of the box. Network Tools is just a sample of what’s waiting on you to discover.