Well, I don't know if buying a Mac and re-buying all the apps I listed just to run gEDA is going to be much of a cost savings over updating my Protel 3.5 Client to the Latest. It is certainly a lot more expensive than just staying as-is.
-- Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westfalia: "Mellow Yellow (The Electrical Banana)" KG6RCR
On the otherhand, most anybody can find a spare 20G partition on their hard drive these days. Load linux into that partition, ask Grub to make your machine a dual boot machine with *gack* 'doze as the primary/default boot, install gEDA in the usual way, and join the crowd.
-Chuck
But then I've booted into Linux, and can't reach the Windoze apps when a customer calls to ask about his account balance (Quickbooks), etc., etc. I reckon a separate cheap-o junk box running Linux is the better solution. But is it worth doing all that just to try out gEDA? My original post had to do with gEDA vs. my Ancient Creaky Protel 3.5 Client.
-- Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westfalia: "Mellow Yellow (The Electrical Banana)" KG6RCR
It's even less expensive than that. What modern PC doesn't have at least a 100Gb drive? And you use all that space for what... pron movies?
Every linux ISO I have met has a partition editor that will quite happily take some of the 80Gb left on your 100Gb drive and form a nice little
10 to 20Gb partition for Linux. And as any linux user well knows linux can be quite happy in a partition that size.That makes adding linux to your pc bag-of-tricks free.
-Chuck
: Well, I don't know if buying a Mac and re-buying all the apps I listed : just to run gEDA is going to be much of a cost savings over updating my : Protel 3.5 Client to the Latest. It is certainly a lot more expensive : than just staying as-is.
I never understand the folks who cite the cost of migrating away from Windoze. If you live in a metropolitan area of any size, it's quite common to see older PCs thrown away regularly. It doesn't take much time or effort to assemble a collection of free PCs by scrounging them from the trash. If one doesn't work, you can use it to provide parts for another one. Then, download an .iso of your favorite Linux distribution, install it on one of the junk PCs, and -- voila -- you've got a free engineering workstation more powerful than a high-end Sun box from the later '90s [1].
Some of my gEDA test platforms were assembled this way. After all, software testing should take place on heterogeneous systems!
Anyway, cost is no excuse to not try out gEDA on Linux.
Stuart
[1] Yes, this argument doesn't apply to the case of a corporate IT department. But it does apply to a one-man consulting shop, which is the situation here, right?
Does it read Quicken files?
A BIG reason people resist changing to Linux -- even when the tools are arguably 'good enough' or even as good as the PC versions -- is that they have hundreds or thousands or hours invested in creating their data and they don't want to re-enter it all.
Sun was very smart in insuring that OpenOffice could read and write -- most -- Microsoft Office files.
can
My experience with VNC is that it still has various minor 'glitches' where the screen doesn't always refresh quite right. I mean, for free I'm not complaining -- it's an excellent product and I love the ability to control a machine remotely. However, it's just not as 'usable' as either an X Server connection or a Windows Remote Desktop (aka Terminal Server) connection.
Well, let's see, Quickbooks should be able to run under wine, and there is certainly an equivalent package to Quickbooks, perhaps gnucash? If you do get another box to run linux, install VNC on both it and the 'doze box, and you can run all of the 'doze applications from a window in the linux box over the ethernet.
Linux is quite good about mounting dos/doze partitions and interoperating with them.
I run linux as my main system, and keep a laptop around that is dual boot so I can run vendor software that has to run under 'doze.
I don't know, but I think gnucash was meant as a replacement for Money. I haven't had time to investigate it fully. There is also something called abicash, IIRC. The target is there, it will be hit.
'Taint VNC's fault. Windows is inconsistant with the way it updates the screen. The folks that wrote VNC have come out with a new release recently. It appears to work better than before.
If you could find a good X terminal for Windows, then you could run linux in a window on windoze. After all, linux's graphical user interfaces are all running through the loopback ethernet interface. It's nice when things are designed on purpose.
What I do, is run windows on a laptop that is a VNC server. Then I can keep a windows window on my linux desktop.
-Chuck
Quicken (personal finance) and Quickbook (business finance). Very different files. QB has inventory, etc., what you need for running a small manufacturing concern.
That's it in a nutshell for me.
I reckon that I do 98% of my work using Windows apps. If I wanted gEDA so much that I just had to start using it, I would probably run it in a VNC'd window on my Win box.
But any way the mustard is cut, deciding to go gEDA for schematic capture and pcb layout would be a big investment in time, not only because of learning curve and library re-creation, but simply setting up hardware and getting things to talk to each other, like my wireless printers and stuff.
-- Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westfalia: "Mellow Yellow (The Electrical Banana)" KG6RCR
I wish folks would be more concise when they post stuff like this about OOo.
OpenOffice.org has a reputation for being able to open M$ documents BETTER than do M$ apps.[1] e.g. Using a new version of WinWord to open a DOC which was created with an older version of WinWord has failed for many people--who then use OOo to easily open the DOC.
[1]The exception is files which contain VBA macros.Ok, I finally have had some time to investigate GNUCash. It appears to be a functional clone of Quicken, QuickBooks, and MSMoney.
It handles simple tasks like checkbooks, mortgages, bank accounts, paychecks... It also handles business tasks like payroll, inventories, accounts payable,and receivable, depreciation, taxes, ...
It appears to be a full, simple accounting system for home finance, and small business finance. I am going to give it a whirl on replacing my business book keeping tasks.
If you want to know more about it, there is a full blown help system available >
It reads QIF files, which are available from MSMoney, Quicken, and QuickBooks.
That doesn't apply here, as GNUCash already has that avenue of migration covered.
-Chuck
It imports Quicken Interchange Format (QIF), Open Financial Exchange (OFX), and Home Banking Computer Interface (HBCI).
GnuCash is designed to do what Quicken, QuickBooks, and MSMoney do, and more. It handles inventories, payroll, accounts payable and receivable, ...
And best of all, it is a true double entry accounting system. Unlike our friends with the "Q".
It has many different forms of reports and graphs (of course)
I am going to convert my manually controlled books over to GnuCash this year.
GNUCash is yet another reason to leave the windoze monarchy.
-Chuck
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