On Sat,7/9/2016 9:40 PM, Ken K6MR wrote:
“I think the amateur radio community would benefit tremendously from
transitioning to *n*x at some point in the future.”
Until the Linux folks make the installation of new hardware as easy as it is on
Windows I don’t think it will ever happen.
I'm VERY strongly in Ken's camp on this one. I started with computers in
the early '80s with a measurement system running in CP/M, which I took
the time to learn. I also took the time to learn DOS, and to do
relatively simple programming in SBASIC and BASIC. A few years down the
road, I transitioned to Windoze, because that's where the engineering
applications I needed ran. Later, I tried to make OS/2 work for me, but
I spent more time getting those specialty Windoze apps to run in OS/2
than I did productive, billable work.
That's how I feel about the desire to make ham stuff run in *nix. I'm an
engineer, a ham, a technical writer. I do NOT want to spend my time
doing IT. I have paid those dues, and lost on the deal big time. OSs are
not religious to me, they are practical for what I want to do on a
computer.
A year or two ago, I went through the exercise of getting Linux and VBox
to work on a couple of machines. It was a struggle, and I don't want to
get into the reasons. I did that to try to run an ancient version
Quattro Pro that happens to do engineering graphs better than anything I
can find in current software -- it's what I use for all my published
graphs. I got VBox running, but I've failed at installing a version of
Windoze old enough to let me load QPW from floppies!
*nix may be wonderful if you're a programmer, but I'm not. :) As Ken has
observed, there's way too much IT overhead involved.
73, Jim K9YC
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