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In Qubes/Xen you can do a USB passthrough, so that the VM controls the hardware without a virtualization layer. That way you could have virtualized video and hardware USB.

The Labjack Linux library is okay--it just doesn't have some of the higher level comfort functions. Once you use wrapper functions to reproduce them, it's pretty comparable.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com

it's not really a splitter, the graphics card has two video outputs on a single special connector, the cable converts that connector to two DVI connectors

it no different than putting multiple graphic cards in the computer and works in any non-ancient OS

Interesting. That might allow running Signalhound Spike in a VM. However, it is also like a princess on the pea when it comes to zippy graphics card access because some calcs seem to be run there. I had to order a new graphics card just because of that one software.

Me and programming, two very different things. I need a ready-to-go SCADA package that can take the Labjack data right in. IOW it needs to have a Labjack communications module like DAQFactory from Azeotech does.

Right now I am just kicking the tires. My wife's PC is now Linux-only and will stay that way. With mine I just had the umpteenth setback. Mundane stuff such as VLC Player and Kamosa refuse to run after install. Very cryptic error message and people in the Linux NG can really pinpoint the cause. Other than reverting to older versions I'll try snap so I get away from these dreaded dedendency "fixes" that the Linux installer does.

If this all becomes too tedious I might go back to Windows but as usual Windows 7 and a VM with Linux in there, for stuff where Windows 7 can't be trusted after Jan 2020.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I meant can't pinpoint the cause. Looks like it's real bugs.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Simon tells me that the Labjack Linux code is at , and that at least the Python bindings are easy to use.

(Meself, I haven't used the Labjack for much since I dumped Windows.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com

I like Linux 85% of the time except for e.g. I have a laptop with an Xubuntu install that works flawlessly for months and then one morning you start it up and the equivalent of the "Start" button is gone on the desktop and the backlight brightness control keys on the keyboard no longer work.

Why? who knows! It did and then it didn't. hardware? software? searching for answers is just many forum and Stack Exchange posts of throwing terminal commands/scripts at the issue until something sticks. you won't find a problem just like yours and nobody will know why similar ones happened, either.

If I get Linux to behave (seems a long slog) I'll try it in a VM because the Labjack's USB isn't always time-critical.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

That seems to be a serious issue with Linux. On my wife's PC the audio for Youtube quit after a Lubuntu update.

I can't even start mundane software like VLC Player and Kamoso right now. The GUI will not throw any error message, just refuses. The terminal lists cryptic stuff such as this:

VLC media player 3.0.7.1 Vetinari (revision 3.0.7.1-0-gf3940db4af) [00005630820fd570] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface. QApplication: invalid style override passed, ignoring it. Gdk-Message: 14:18:44.724: vlc: Fatal IO error 22 (Invalid argument) on X server :0.

Re-installs end with "you have held broken packages". All this doesn't leave a very professional taste but unfortunately the time of Windows 7 which is last known good to me) will end in January.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

It still happens sometimes but it's so, so much better than it used to be. Similar probs occasionally happen on Windows 10 too. Ubuntu has gotten better, Windows (IMO) has gotten a lil worse since Win 7, headed towards parity on the cryptic-faults.

On the upside when it works the way it's supposed to, which to be fair is most of the time, a lighter-weight Ubuntu distribution like Xu makes a i7 laptop with 12 gigs of RAM and an SSD "feel" like you have a machine with the oomph that you paid for when running LTSpice or Octave or doing big file transfer operations.

I like its minimalist look and interface a lot, I'm okay with flashy icons and 3D accelerated graphics on a media center or video gamez PC desktop in the way MacOS and Win 10 and Ubuntu with gnome or KDE are, stock, but on a work machine it's distracting.

Win 10 is a combination of some nice features and UI improvements that I don't mind using when it works right either, and on a power-consumption-no-object screaming desktop workstation, it's actually pretty nice.

but it's also just a big beast of an OS. And OEMs are still installing it on cheaper laptops with 5400 RPM drives which is a criminal thing to do!

On a sunny day (Thu, 29 Aug 2019 06:50:24 -0700) it happened Joerg wrote in :

Unix, as with all things it helps to have some in depth knowledge

I do not use VLC, I consider it 'from kindergarten for kindergarten' I use mplayer most of the time for testing things then xine for movies, ffplay for more difficult stuff, and ffmpeg for re-encoding and some editing There are many more programs for that, transcode,and I normally compile from source Upgrades? No. Many upgrades are broken, recently had a fight with Debian developers about how they broke old the xforms program, told them to stuff it and I compile old xforms from source as I always do, they wanted me to rewrite some program I wrote for the broken version, I refused.

My main system is slackware, now that will not help you but at least it is sane mostly the work of one person who has been at it from the beginning, so it just works, FOR ME it works.

I have one partition with latest debian where most things do not work right but the browser is the latest uname -a Linux panteltje10 2.6.37.6 #3 SMP Sat Apr 9 22:49:32 CDT 2011 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2430M CPU @ 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

So, am on the laptop now from far away in space, ssh -Y to the home station with NewsFleX.

Linux is just fun, anything is possible, it is not for complainers.

I was thinking maybe bitrex's disk was full ... But as you see from uname -a 2011 version 64 bit slackware on laptop.. If I needed (and I was just on youtube and also just played a satellite program), yes via ssh too, like this in first terminal start the player netcat -l -p 1024 | mplayer -

In second terminal ssh to home base and start the sat source somewhere (skip sets the start point): dd if=Astra1_Sat1_a.13h57.29-8-2019-246m.ts bs=1000000 skip=1000 | netcat -v 192.168.178.20 1024

192.168.178.20 is the IP of this laptop, 1024 some port that is open (not fire-walled netcat is great.

It is all up to you, yes I have 21 years experience with Linux and longer with Unix. Get a good book on Unix (did that long before Linux existed) and when I started with Linux on the PC that and a lot of notes was a great help. Basics, just like electronics. You have to know the basics. Couple of years, what I liked and why I moved to Linux was the free gcc compiler command line interface and X separate, write my own programs, open source.

If you want a cooked dinner I dunno, even MS stuff has a learning curve.

Just thoughts

Now lets tsee if the intergalactic link will send this without the flux capacitors.

Oh. Sort of like using a GeForce 8400 (Svideo/VGA/DVI-I) or a GeForce

8600 (Svideo/2-DVI-I). Thanks.

Except I never had it happen and I use Windows 7 for many years. Also never had it happen with any Windowxs all the way back to NT4 which I started using in 1997.

I like the no-frills GUI of Lubuntu. Some people said I'd never get much group support with that because Mate is more popular and such. I don't understand it because that's just the GUI, the frosting on the OS.

I won't use it, for many reasons but mostly the ones Phils had explained in this NG once. Privacy and "calling home".

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

What feature of the NVS 300 do you need? I only use AMD RX550 Low Profile cards on my PCs. By the way, why are people still using XP class of Linux. I only use latest Mint 19 for desktop and Ubuntu 19 for servers, except t hat Ubuntu 19 works better with the amdgpu-pro driver.

The Open GL support. The G33 chip on the motherboard supports only up to

1.4 but the software for my spectum analyzer requires 2.0 minimum. The NVC 300 support up to 3.3.

I thought this Open GL stuff was more for gamers but obviously not. The NVS 300 will be way too powerful for this PC but you can hardly buy simpler ones anymore. One requirement is no fan. I do not like noise much.

A couple of the computer here are really low horsepower and require a lean distro. While the Dell Vostro currently in the works could easily stomach Mint I like to kerp the same GUI everywhere, for easier maintenance.

Also, isn't it just the GUI and the Debian underneath the surface is the same as for the leather-seated Linux desktops? I am perfectly content with a spartan GUI as long as it works. Right now it has some weird problems.

Maybe someday I will as well. Being a Linux newbie I do not know how easy it is to switch Linux versions without having to re-install everything. If too onerous I just leave all of them with Lubuntu.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On a sunny day (Fri, 30 Aug 2019 11:33:10 -0700) it happened Joerg wrote in :

The reality is that Ubuntu, and several other distros are all debian derivatives, So if debian screws up, as in the case of the brightness buttons no longer working on Bitrex's laptop, shortly after that same will happen in ubuntu versions and other versions based on debian. Some later version of debian had exactly the same problem as Bitrex has with the laptop buttons, so that is the source, Debian for me in Dutch has become 'debielian' that is how I often call it.

Again with distros it is: 'If It Works Do Not Fix It (upgrade)'. [1]

As to your graphics card problems on this PC that I assembled I do not even use a graphic card it is all integrated in the mobo (AMD). Open GL works but no idea what the version is, would have to look it up, wrote some simulation code for it back then. This mobo with build in graphics was, lemme see, from csl-computer-shop.de parts all together including MDISC Bluray burner, harddisk, processor, several PCI cards, power supply, housing

329 Euro I have a very powerful graphics card for it, stored, not used. Graphics could be a bit faster for pdf files though... But for 2012 ? Not so bad. 24/7 on, never a problem.

Compile new application from source if you can.

Also there is a lot going on with X, I have one backup PC that runs Xfree.

These days the forces that ? are have changed X into something that certainly has its problems, the X.org consortium.

There also seems to be somebody who wrote a 'new' version to replace X (Wayland). (X = Xwindows, the GUI part) Not sure how many have adapted that yet. And of course some things will then break.

.

Ubuntu 18.03 LTS w/ AMGGPU-pro 18.30 will support OpenGL 4.5. Actually, i prefer Mint 19 GUI and never had any problem mentioned here. Unfortunately , stupid AMD does not provide binary driver for Mint; so, some of the .so f iles are in the wrong place. But i use headline crypto miners (OpenCL 2.0) anyway, never even have screen on the servers.

The RX550 LP fan is very quiet, even less noise than my CPU or case fan. F or occasional GPU use, you can unplug/disable the fan. I even have 24/7 mi ners without fan going for months. Might kill the $50 GPU card eventually, but who care.

By the way, best Linux GPU discussion group is for mining forums, second be st is here, i guess.

I have a feeling that's where it's going with Lubuntu. Or has to. For example, after an OS update the Youtube audio on my wife's PC quit working. Gave up after a few steps down into the bilge. Looks like another bug.

So if I really adopt Linux (not 100% sure yet) I'll also have to look into snap, in hopes to get rid of those dreaded dependencies. Then switch each snap container to no update.

My mobo graphics chip only supports Open GL to 1.4 but need 2.0 minimum. The card was just flagged as "delivered". "To a neighbor as requested", which I never requested. Great. Guess it's time for a little neighborhood walk. Again.

That is seriously beyond my capabilities. I am a hardware guy.

For sure a lot of things have already broken. It looks quite bad. It wastes so much time to chase all this. One easy way out would be converting back to Windows 7 and, after January 2020, run Linux in a VM for stuff that has to have web access, like the browser and email. Wouldn't be very nice with file handling and all. In Windows 7 everything ran right out-of-the-box, no debug at all. However, there comes January 2020.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Mobo chip or CPU chip. My AMD A10 CPU comes with a low end Radeon GPU, but even AMDGPU pro does not support it. Counting on AMD or Nivida for softwa re support is unfortunate. Fortunately, open source Mesa driver is coming up soon for AMD GPU, but not Nivida. In few months, Mesa is supposed to su pport OpenGL 4.6.

I have 5 RX550 on 3 PCs running in my living room. The noise does not both er me much, exact when my brother come to sleep on the couch, then i have to shutdown some of them.

It's the graphics chip that doesn't support past 1.4 on my system. However, the NVS 300 just arrived. Said full height but the metal bracket is way too short. Oh well, looks like some shop time in the very toasty garage. Maybe I do that on Sunday morning when it's cooler.

I don't know anything about crypto mining. Some people still mine for gold in this area, the real stuff :-)

Maybe add a simple mechanical "pill thermostat" and affix that on the heat sink? I hate to destroy hardware needlessly.

I hope this NVS 300 fixes it all for good. Let's see if Linux likes it. Windows will (dual-boot) so at least I can see that the HW works.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/