Some of you may have followed my trials and frustrations in trying to get an old XP driven Dell computer to live again. This computer is at a vacation house and I hated to spend money on a new computer. I run eggbeaters and an ft847 there. Here are outcomes, good and bad so far.
1) installed Ubuntu and was confident this would be the solution and it might still, however even the latest version of GPredict is buggy. I suspect the real culprit is Hamlib.
2) I installed Wine in Ubuntu in hopes of getting SatPC32 to run. This nearly worked but a few features didn't. For example I could not switch between modes using SatPC32 and I'm not certain that the CAT frequency adjust is working. Further investigation is required here.
3) I then discovered CrossOver which essentially is a commercial version of Wine for the Mac. Since I never leave home without a Mac laptop I decided to try a CrossOver demo. It took a while and some good "Elmer" support using the terminal program to configure the comm port, but once I solved that problem I found that the MacBook Pro running CrossOver will run SatPC32 perfectly! CrossOver is reasonably priced for your Mac.
So that's where I ended up. I've not yet abandoned learning my way around Linux as it's been a good learning experience and I really appreciate the online support I received from fellow hams.
73 Rick W2JAZ
Cool! Thanks for the hint about CrossOver!
I have not tried SatPC32 this way, but for many programs I have had very good luck using virtual machines. In particular, I have used VirtualBox on Ubuntu and find it to be pretty good. I also use Parallels on my Mac. Of course on a slow machine virtual machines are not so effective, and you still have to have a copy of Windows to install.
73,
Burns W2BFJ
On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 9:31 AM, Richard Lawn rjlawn@gmail.com wrote:
Some of you may have followed my trials and frustrations in trying to get an old XP driven Dell computer to live again. This computer is at a vacation house and I hated to spend money on a new computer. I run eggbeaters and an ft847 there. Here are outcomes, good and bad so far.
- installed Ubuntu and was confident this would be the solution and it
might still, however even the latest version of GPredict is buggy. I suspect the real culprit is Hamlib.
- I installed Wine in Ubuntu in hopes of getting SatPC32 to run. This
nearly worked but a few features didn't. For example I could not switch between modes using SatPC32 and I'm not certain that the CAT frequency adjust is working. Further investigation is required here.
- I then discovered CrossOver which essentially is a commercial version
of Wine for the Mac. Since I never leave home without a Mac laptop I decided to try a CrossOver demo. It took a while and some good "Elmer" support using the terminal program to configure the comm port, but once I solved that problem I found that the MacBook Pro running CrossOver will run SatPC32 perfectly! CrossOver is reasonably priced for your Mac.
So that's where I ended up. I've not yet abandoned learning my way around Linux as it's been a good learning experience and I really appreciate the online support I received from fellow hams.
73 Rick W2JAZ _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
While it is not Satpc32, Orbitron runs well under wine on Ubuntu.
participants (3)
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Burns Fisher -
Floyd Rodgers -
Richard Lawn