gEDA suite vs my creaky old Protel Client 3.5?

[Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott]

Well, you can use all those under Mac OS X, *and* gEDA

<snip>

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

 

[Chuck Harris]

<snip>

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.

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

 

[Stuart Brorson]

[. . . . snip . . . .]

: 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?

 

[Chuck Harris]

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.

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

 

[Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott]

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.

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.

 

[Chuck Harris]

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.

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.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Well, let's see, Quickbooks should be able to run under wine, and there is
certainly an equivalent package to Quickbooks, perhaps gnucash?

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.

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.

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.

 

[Chuck Harris]

Does it read Quicken files?

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.

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.




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.

'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

 

[Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott]

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.

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.

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

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.

 

[JeffM]

Sun was very smart in insuring that OpenOffice could read and write

-- most -- Microsoft Office files.
Joel Kolstad

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.

 

[Chuck Harris]

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

Does it read Quicken files?

It reads QIF files, which are available from MSMoney, Quicken, and QuickBooks.

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.

That doesn't apply here, as GNUCash already has that avenue of migration covered.

-Chuck

 

[Chuck Harris]

It imports Quicken Interchange Format (QIF), Open Financial Exchange (OFX),
and Home Banking Computer Interface (HBCI).

Quicken (personal finance) and Quickbook (business finance). Very
different files. QB has inventory, etc., what you need for running a
small manufacturing concern.

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