Matt O'Toole wrote:
I'd prefer Mac or Linux too, but boats usually need a Windows system
aboard to run navigation software.

I do wish there was a good nav package for Linux.


Matt,

Check out http://www.vmware.com

They have an alternative OS solution, but it costs money - not a lot,
but enough to warn you about. They make a Virtual Machine simulator
that runs as an application on most of the common operating systems,
including Linux.

The advantage here is that you can run Linux (for free) as your host OS,
then have one or more "virtual machines" running as applications that
could run a full Windows2000, Windows98, WindowsXP, MAC, etc., each
independent of the other and unaware that they aren't the primary OS.

VMware also allows the virtual machines to have (at your choice) network
connects (via the host OS) to the outside world - or not. So, if you
want to use MicroSloth products (because your favorite apps don't
support Linux yet) but you don't want to expose yourself to the
vulnerabilities of such a buggy and unsafe OS, you can install them
without network availability, run your favorite application, and
eliminate the security risks that networked Windoze systems impose, all
the while using Linux connected to the outside world.

Amusingly, when one of these virtual OS's decides to crash, your
computer (and its native OS and any other VMs) keep working along
merrily. So, although you may be used to the blue screen of death from
Mr. Gates, all that happens when your VM version crashes is that you
"reboot" that particular "application".

Another huge advantage is that each VM can be assigned a fixed amount of
disk space (I tend to make these separate partitions on the native OS
but you don't have to) and you can "back up" the entire VM (as one
single file - think of it as a full disk copy of a traditional system.

The only down sides I can think of are 1) you need to buy VMware, 2)
that VMware tends to need a lot of memory, so you pretty much want to
max out your RAM (which is nowadays very cheap), and 3) that you need a
stand alone install disk for any "client" OS's you want to install.

The last bit is true independent of VMware. It was a dirty trick MS
started using when they realized that folks might want to "reuse" their
software on other machines. What most folks didn't realize is that
when that bought that laptop or desktop "bundled" with Windoze, the OS
that came with it is "hacked" to only run on that specific machine. If
your laptop or desktop died, that OS disk that came with it can not be
used to install Windows on another machine.

So, get a decent laptop or desktop, max out the RAM, install a 40gig (or
more) disk, install Linux as the native OS, purchase VMware, create one
or more Virtual Machines (allocate 3 gigs of disk space to each) onto
which you then install one or more versions of Windows or MAC OS.

This approach, BTW, is also very useful for being able to maintain
applications that are no longer supported on newer versions of your OS.
Just run both OS as VMs, and when you need to use an older
application, switch to that virtual machine.

Cheers,

Robb

On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:14:02 GMT, AMPowers
wrote:

This approach, BTW, is also very useful for being able to maintain
applications that are no longer supported on newer versions of your OS.
Just run both OS as VMs, and when you need to use an older
application, switch to that virtual machine.

Cheers,

Robb
================================

Robb, as a point of interest, could you make an image copy of your
present MS OS hard disk, and then boot that up under VM?

Well, I don't wish to make absolute claims here, but I very much doubt
it. One reason being that MS (unless installed from a stand alone
version) is hardwired to run on the specific hardware it came bundled
with, but MS restrictions not withstanding (I also don't believe) there
is any utility that currently does this within VMware.

A better approach might be to copy everything of interest off to an
external drive, then attach that drive to the new Virtual Machine and
copy everything from it onto the local drive. This would work fine for
data files and such, but MicroSloth goes out of its way to make the
applications (unlike Linux) difficult to install. My guess would be
that you need to rerun the installer programs - and some of the new
application installers might object to being installed on a machine
(virtual or otherwise) that wasn't connected to the network.

Of course, the best approach is to avoid using such a blatantly inferior
OS in the first place, and there are free utilities such as "wine" that
supposedly can run Windoze binaries directly from within Linux, but I
personally do not have any experience with them. I would suggest
asking one of the Linux support groups about that.

If you do go with Linux as your base OS, I think you should make sure to
download the Mozilla "FireFox" browser and "Thunderbird" emailer apps,
as well as the free "Open Office" suite of tools (an editor that can
handle almost any standard file type including the various MS Word
files, a spread sheet that can handle Excel as well as other file types,
Drawing programs, photoshop like programs, etc. All for free. Oh,
BTW, there are MS based version of all these tools as well. Check out
http://www.mozilla.org and http://www.openoffice.org (be sure to use
the .org ending)

Also, as for particular versions of Linux, I would recommend the Redhat
Fedora Core4 version. If you decide to go that route, I suggest you
download the DVD install disk (instead of the 4 CD ROMs). I found this
to be far easier when installing the system. Check out
http://www.fedora.redhat.com/download/

One warning. If you start using a UNIX based operating system for any
length of time you will find yourself wondering why it isn't crashing
periodically. Do not be alarmed, there is also an MS crash simulator
that you can install which will randomly put of a simulated blue screen
of death allowing you to feel more at home. Over time you can ween
yourself off of the need to see this pacifier.

In a world without fences, who needs Gates?

Cheers,

Robb


Wayne.B wrote:

Robb, as a point of interest, could you make an image copy of your
present MS OS hard disk, and then boot that up under VM?

On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 07:02:42 GMT, AMPowers
wrote:

One warning. If you start using a UNIX based operating system for any
length of time you will find yourself wondering why it isn't crashing
periodically. Do not be alarmed, there is also an MS crash simulator
that you can install which will randomly put of a simulated blue screen
of death allowing you to feel more at home.

Thanks for the reply. Fortunately, stability is not a big issue for
me using a fully updated and protected Win 2K. I can't remember the
last time I got a "blue screen". Just lucky I guess.

On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:14:02 +0000, AMPowers wrote:

Matt O'Toole wrote:

I'd prefer Mac or Linux too, but boats usually need a Windows system
aboard to run navigation software.

I do wish there was a good nav package for Linux.


Matt,

Check out http://www.vmware.com

They have an alternative OS solution, but it costs money - not a lot,
but enough to warn you about. They make a Virtual Machine simulator
that runs as an application on most of the common operating systems,
including Linux.

The advantage here is that you can run Linux (for free) as your host OS,
then have one or more "virtual machines" running as applications that
could run a full Windows2000, Windows98, WindowsXP, MAC, etc., each
independent of the other and unaware that they aren't the primary OS.

VMware also allows the virtual machines to have (at your choice) network
connects (via the host OS) to the outside world - or not. So, if you
want to use MicroSloth products (because your favorite apps don't
support Linux yet) but you don't want to expose yourself to the
vulnerabilities of such a buggy and unsafe OS, you can install them
without network availability, run your favorite application, and
eliminate the security risks that networked Windoze systems impose, all
the while using Linux connected to the outside world.

Amusingly, when one of these virtual OS's decides to crash, your
computer (and its native OS and any other VMs) keep working along
merrily. So, although you may be used to the blue screen of death from
Mr. Gates, all that happens when your VM version crashes is that you
"reboot" that particular "application".

Another huge advantage is that each VM can be assigned a fixed amount of
disk space (I tend to make these separate partitions on the native OS
but you don't have to) and you can "back up" the entire VM (as one
single file - think of it as a full disk copy of a traditional system.

The only down sides I can think of are 1) you need to buy VMware, 2)
that VMware tends to need a lot of memory, so you pretty much want to
max out your RAM (which is nowadays very cheap), and 3) that you need a
stand alone install disk for any "client" OS's you want to install.

The last bit is true independent of VMware. It was a dirty trick MS
started using when they realized that folks might want to "reuse" their
software on other machines. What most folks didn't realize is that
when that bought that laptop or desktop "bundled" with Windoze, the OS
that came with it is "hacked" to only run on that specific machine. If
your laptop or desktop died, that OS disk that came with it can not be
used to install Windows on another machine.

So, get a decent laptop or desktop, max out the RAM, install a 40gig (or
more) disk, install Linux as the native OS, purchase VMware, create one
or more Virtual Machines (allocate 3 gigs of disk space to each) onto
which you then install one or more versions of Windows or MAC OS.

This approach, BTW, is also very useful for being able to maintain
applications that are no longer supported on newer versions of your OS.
Just run both OS as VMs, and when you need to use an older
application, switch to that virtual machine.

Robb,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I'm well aware of VMware, having used it since pre-1.0 beta for testing
web platforms. It works great, and is the basis for most web hosting
companies offering VM hosting.

It's overkill for personal use though. By the time you buy a VMware
license plus a Windows license for your Linux laptop, you could almost
have bought a new laptop which comes with Windows anyway. A desktop might
actually be cheaper. Even under VMware, Windows still has to restart when
it crashes. Maybe it does a little quicker but not much. And you're
still stuck with Windows' cluttered interface when running your Windows
programs. So you don't gain a damned thing by doing this.

Engineering issues aside, I much prefer the interface of Mac OS or Linux
desktops to Windows. Also, if nav software were developed for these
platforms it's likely we'd get better designers and smarter programmers
than the ones working in the Windows realm. I'm convinced Maptech's
current developers do not even operate boats.

Matt O.

I have tried downloading Linux off the net but every time the download fails
how can I go about getting linux for free? I've seen where you can purchase
the disk for it and install it off the disk but that's not fre.
"AMPowers" wrote in message
...
Matt O'Toole wrote:
I'd prefer Mac or Linux too, but boats usually need a Windows system
aboard to run navigation software.

I do wish there was a good nav package for Linux.


Matt,

Check out http://www.vmware.com

They have an alternative OS solution, but it costs money - not a lot, but
enough to warn you about. They make a Virtual Machine simulator that
runs as an application on most of the common operating systems, including
Linux.

The advantage here is that you can run Linux (for free) as your host OS,
then have one or more "virtual machines" running as applications that
could run a full Windows2000, Windows98, WindowsXP, MAC, etc., each
independent of the other and unaware that they aren't the primary OS.

VMware also allows the virtual machines to have (at your choice) network
connects (via the host OS) to the outside world - or not. So, if you
want to use MicroSloth products (because your favorite apps don't support
Linux yet) but you don't want to expose yourself to the vulnerabilities of
such a buggy and unsafe OS, you can install them without network
availability, run your favorite application, and eliminate the security
risks that networked Windoze systems impose, all the while using Linux
connected to the outside world.

Amusingly, when one of these virtual OS's decides to crash, your computer
(and its native OS and any other VMs) keep working along merrily. So,
although you may be used to the blue screen of death from Mr. Gates, all
that happens when your VM version crashes is that you "reboot" that
particular "application".

Another huge advantage is that each VM can be assigned a fixed amount of
disk space (I tend to make these separate partitions on the native OS but
you don't have to) and you can "back up" the entire VM (as one single
file - think of it as a full disk copy of a traditional system.

The only down sides I can think of are 1) you need to buy VMware, 2) that
VMware tends to need a lot of memory, so you pretty much want to max out
your RAM (which is nowadays very cheap), and 3) that you need a stand
alone install disk for any "client" OS's you want to install.

The last bit is true independent of VMware. It was a dirty trick MS
started using when they realized that folks might want to "reuse" their
software on other machines. What most folks didn't realize is that when
that bought that laptop or desktop "bundled" with Windoze, the OS that
came with it is "hacked" to only run on that specific machine. If your
laptop or desktop died, that OS disk that came with it can not be used to
install Windows on another machine.

So, get a decent laptop or desktop, max out the RAM, install a 40gig (or
more) disk, install Linux as the native OS, purchase VMware, create one or
more Virtual Machines (allocate 3 gigs of disk space to each) onto which
you then install one or more versions of Windows or MAC OS.

This approach, BTW, is also very useful for being able to maintain
applications that are no longer supported on newer versions of your OS.
Just run both OS as VMs, and when you need to use an older application,
switch to that virtual machine.

Cheers,

Robb

Chi Chi wrote:
I have tried downloading Linux off the net but every time the download fails
how can I go about getting linux for free?

Well, if you are downloading Linux on a very slow line, or using a very
slow computer, or your connection is not stable then the problem is the
hardware itself. If all of that is working fine, then you might want
to have your RAM checked as downloads of large data tend to really
exercise RAM and even one sporadically failing bit out of 128,000,000
would cause the download to fail.

So, as a possible alternative, find someone with a high speed connection
and good computer that has some experience with it and have them
download the "DVD" version of Linux. You can download the 4 CDROMs
instead but I have found that it is so much easier to have everything on
one disk - providing your machine as a DVD reader, which it really should.

I prefer the Redhat Fedora Core4 (or the latest Core5 release) but there
are several different ones mentioned, and quite frankly I think they are
all quite good. Burn this onto a DVD as an ISO image. Read the various
websites mentioned earlier about doing this, plus Redhat's website
contains step by step instructions on doing this.

Put the DVD into your machine, reboot it, choose the default on most
everything it asks and it should fully install the OS within 45 minutes.

The only other issue I would suggest being careful about is "dual boot"
setup. Windows is designed to not allow this configuration (Billy Gates
doesn't like anyone using any product but the overpriced ones he sells
you himself) so you need to sort of trick the system when setting this
up. I prefer to just eliminate Windoze entirely.

Cheers,

Robb