Surveying and non-Windows operating system

I am neither a business owner nor running without windows OS, however, one of my good friends is a computer science nerd and he has been running linux for a while. Apparently there are several windows emulators out there that you can get for free that will allow you to run most any windows-only application on your linux system. One that intrigues me is called WINE. It stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator" or something like that. Apparently, you can make a package of a windows app that will run native on linux (also on Mac OS X and other operating systems) by "wrapping it" in a "WINE skin". I don't know how it is done, but I've heard that it can be quite effective. And apparently there is a large community of users that are doing these things.

So, my suggestion would be to maybe look at emulators and things like WINE and perhaps you'll find a workable solution there.

I don't run a surveying business, I am retired. However I do take on the occasional project.

what I do:
... Linux (LMDE Mate) for 95% ... communication, web, word processing, data bases, spread sheets, file management, etc.
... Windows 7 to run Acad, Star*Net, etc. with no internet connection. I use my Local Network or USB drives to share with Linux.

Separate computers.... Computers are cheep. You don't need a lot of horsepower for Linux. (dual boot also works Great)
Your old retired machines can be re-purposed for Linux, zero $ investment.
Used computers with a genuine Windows installed are dirt cheap too.
There are non free Cad programs for Linux, but what I have works fine.

I don't have any electronic field gear. Most of that stuff takes propitiatory software designed for Windows.

I do know several Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors over here that do the same.

skwyd, post: 358475, member: 6874 wrote: I am neither a business owner nor running without windows OS, however, one of my good friends is a computer science nerd and he has been running linux for a while. Apparently there are several windows emulators out there that you can get for free that will allow you to run most any windows-only application on your linux system. One that intrigues me is called WINE. It stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator" or something like that. Apparently, you can make a package of a windows app that will run native on linux (also on Mac OS X and other operating systems) by "wrapping it" in a "WINE skin". I don't know how it is done, but I've heard that it can be quite effective. And apparently there is a large community of users that are doing these things.

So, my suggestion would be to maybe look at emulators and things like WINE and perhaps you'll find a workable solution there.

Wine works fine with Acad 14 and older, but Not the newer versions.
Wine does work for lots of things, but 99% of them also have slick and powerful (and free) Linux programs that serve well.
I understand gamers use Wine for games, but I don't mess with them.
Play on Linux is a very common front end for Wine... Wine is the defacto emulator.

Peter Ehlert, post: 358481, member: 60 wrote: Wine works fine with Acad 14 and older, but Not the newer versions.
Wine does work for lots of things, but 99% of them also have slick and powerful (and free) Linux programs that serve well.
I understand gamers use Wine for games, but I don't mess with them.

Good information! I have recently been looking in to WINE because at home I run Mac OS X for all of my personal stuff. I just like it. There is one program that I use for one of my hobbies, but it only has a Windows version (and was designed for WinXP, as well). I currently have VMware Fusion installed to emulate WinXP to run this one utility. However, the WINE solution seems like it might be a better fit for me. And as I've been researching, I've found that there is a large community that uses, supports, and develops WINE implementation of all kinds of things.

skwyd: try it!
also try running a live DVD/USB with Linux to get a taste... you can dual boot with OSX.

I started using linux a some years back. The more I use it the more I like it. In many ways it is way better than Windows, everything seems to just work and it doesn't ask a bunch of questions like "are you sure you want to...".

The main reason I don't use it full time is the AutoCad functionality. I tried running wine and was not pleased with it. Running software to run more software led to problems for me. I think Autodesk is too robust to run in wine. It crashes enough while running in windows. Maybe I did not have it set up properly though.

It is definitely worth checking out. It is free so really there is no excuse except time.

an alternative to Wine: VirtualBox.
in a virtual box you can install Windows and then running Windows you can install Acad and all the other stuff.
I have done that, it works, but a bit slower than booting to Windows.
... but there is the overhead issue that Beau_Immel just mentioned.

there are many commercial versions however VirtualBox is preinstalled in the Debian based distros: Mint, Ubuntu, etc.
"VirtualBox is a free x86 virtualization solution allowing a wide range of x86 operating systems such as Windows, DOS, BSD or Linux to run on a Linux system."
https://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox

Peter Ehlert, post: 358485, member: 60 wrote: skwyd: try it!
also try running a live DVD/USB with Linux to get a taste... you can dual boot with OSX.

I have often thought about dipping my feet into the Linux pool (dual booting on my MacBook Pro). But usually the limitations of my spare time deter me from that. I mean, it has been a month since I did my last home brew! I need to get on that as well.

[MEDIA=youtube]zvfD5rnkTws[/MEDIA]

So tired of juggling the three MS flavors it takes to run all the software.
XP for Primacode & StarNet 6 & Topcon Tools 7.5 & an ancient Carlson, Win7 that I have been migrating to Win8, only to find that some things don't run well if at all on Win8.
Windows 10 will refuse to run a lot of small-publisher software, so I expect all the cottage-industry written-by-a-surveyor software will stop there.
The only shining success so far is that Traverse PC works great on Win8.1 and they report it is working fine with Win10.

I plan ASAP to acquire the Linux version of Bricscad and re-write my whole workflow in Lisp, tie it together with RTKlib and GNU GAMA or some other open source GPS post-processing and geodetic least squares.

There's also a hook that will call Python from Lisp, that right there ought to be the keys to the castle, what with ESRI using so much Python these days.
Someone with ambition could fill a huge niche writing a "Norte Americano" add-on package for Linux Bricscad, one with US Survey feet and PLSS tools.

I'm running all the other OS's on a Mac under VMware Fusion. Works great. Retina screen is much easier to look at for hours of calcs or CAD.
(I can hardly make the Mac do anything besides start VMware.)

It's pretty well a standard to STAY 2 yrs behind, with your OS. I'm staying Windows 7, for probably 2 More years.