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Signlab and Linux
- Thread starter GrayM
- Start date
graym
sounds like a silly idea to me.
we have been virtualizing windows since 2012. much longer if you count parallels on mac.
there is absolutely NO REASON to think signlab will run better ON THE SAME WINDOWS just because you are running a vm on linux
quite the opposite. at best it will run just the same & you will have the disadvantage of being a linux novice.
sounds like a silly idea to me.
we have been virtualizing windows since 2012. much longer if you count parallels on mac.
there is absolutely NO REASON to think signlab will run better ON THE SAME WINDOWS just because you are running a vm on linux
quite the opposite. at best it will run just the same & you will have the disadvantage of being a linux novice.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
A Virtual Machine will only be good if your computer has the resources to handle it. However, what is the reason for having Linux as the host? There could be some valid reasons for doing this, running a Windows machine off the WAN in order to keep legacy versions going for whatever reason. Running tests, dev environment etc without having to deal with the telemetry bloat of Windows. I can only imagine running legacy is the most valid here for this group. But again, it's going to depend on how good your machine is. A virtual environment is liking running two computers but SHARING the resources of one.
Now, have dual booting as an option, but that has it's own issues as well and Windows doesn't play well in that situation (I would recommend VMing over a dual boot anyway).
The Hail Mary option is WINE, which is a translation layer turning Windows calls to POSIX ones (this has it's own downside as well, malware that is Windows only, now has a nice environment to happen on Linux (or MAC as well as there is a commercial version of WINE for it as well)). Given the niche nature of Signlab, probably on your own as to rather or not WINE can get it up and running, which could also be version dependent. Adobe is something that would be well documented as to what works, which version and how to get it to work etc. I think there is documentation of Flexi working with an old version via WINE.
Keep in mind, depending on if there is any support left on your version, VMing and/or the WINE option will not get you support from the OEM (or at least don't expect it and if you do get it, wonderful). So if you go that route, "Here be dragons".
Now, have dual booting as an option, but that has it's own issues as well and Windows doesn't play well in that situation (I would recommend VMing over a dual boot anyway).
The Hail Mary option is WINE, which is a translation layer turning Windows calls to POSIX ones (this has it's own downside as well, malware that is Windows only, now has a nice environment to happen on Linux (or MAC as well as there is a commercial version of WINE for it as well)). Given the niche nature of Signlab, probably on your own as to rather or not WINE can get it up and running, which could also be version dependent. Adobe is something that would be well documented as to what works, which version and how to get it to work etc. I think there is documentation of Flexi working with an old version via WINE.
Keep in mind, depending on if there is any support left on your version, VMing and/or the WINE option will not get you support from the OEM (or at least don't expect it and if you do get it, wonderful). So if you go that route, "Here be dragons".
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
I'm reading this as the OP being fed up with Windows and it's not necessarily Signlab acting up, but wanting to make sure that it can run somehow given if the host is changed to Linux. Isolating Windows in a VM that is disconnected from the WAN could do better, just depends on what is going on. There are a lot of outside connections being made in the current iteration of Windows that it is definitely dragging down on resources and multi-tasking abilities. While there are stripping Windows scripts out there, that comes with their own caveats as well (personally, I don't think that they should be a thing, the user should have this ability to do this on their own without 3rd party tools, but I could have been on Linux for far too long and couldn't go back to the training wheel OS that is Windows unless I absolutely had to).
windows has gotten worse ever since windows 2000 sp4.
the question is not whether you or i can make it run in a VM
the question is whether an end user (NO OFFENSE GRAYM) is properly served introducing a new OS he is not familiar with.
if we are thinking it is outside connections causing his problem, i would suggest a clean loading of windows WITH A LOCAL USER, not a microsoft account, and then connecting the printer with an ethernet crossover cable.
this way we give the internet a viable alibi when something goes wrong
if you suggested he switch to a linux version of signlab (is there such a thing, i am not a signlab guy) i would agree with you.
the question is not whether you or i can make it run in a VM
the question is whether an end user (NO OFFENSE GRAYM) is properly served introducing a new OS he is not familiar with.
if we are thinking it is outside connections causing his problem, i would suggest a clean loading of windows WITH A LOCAL USER, not a microsoft account, and then connecting the printer with an ethernet crossover cable.
this way we give the internet a viable alibi when something goes wrong
if you suggested he switch to a linux version of signlab (is there such a thing, i am not a signlab guy) i would agree with you.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
Win 98 is where I tap out, I quite like that one and that was the best for desktop UI.
This wouldn't be any different compared to switching to Mac. There is always going to be teething pains, however, at least there are DEs that do make things easier and more Windows like out of the box (this is a double edged sword, marketing on the Linux side has been piss poor in this regard). Can't say the same for Mac. The biggest advantage that Mac does have, is that software on Windows has a better chance of having a Mac port compared to a Linux one.
There is no way that local account access is going to last forever, and probably even shorter for those on the Pro version. Enterprise may last longer, but even Enterprise couldn't escape some things that people originally went to Pro to avoid, but Pro got sucked in and eventually Enterprise as well. Shoot, they are already have Windows 365 as it is. Pretty soon it's going to be thin clients with enough of a system to boot into an Azure instance for Windows users. And as WASM gets better, more and more software will probably run off a web runtime.
I personally would speculate that even something like Windows updates could be causing issues. I think I read somewhere that up to 40% of MS code is now "AI" generated. I had posted several articles were "AI" tooling is being hoisted onto the devs as part of their evauls.
Companies that used to be software OEMs are now more into data collection companies. They have a captive audience and they are using that to the best of their ability.
There is rarely going to be such a thing, especially if it's using the Win32 API (or similar). If it's using Qt, (Maya uses this toolkit, same with TeamViewer etc, I doubt GTK will be used for a Windows builds, it's a pain to setup for Windows, it's honestly a pain for Linux as well) or Electron (eventually it may be this or just a castrated webview that dials a website (like Canva does for it's "native" builds)) that may get one, but I doubt it. Only commercial software of any type available on Linux would be Caldera and they only support a subset of Linux distros.