Linux installations
Last weekend I obtained a license for VMSWare Workstation – needed to be able to create multiple VMs (not related to OpenVMS :)) on Demeter – the laptop – and (perhaps) Aphrodite – my normally used system. I kind of need them to run Windows and several Linux distributions side-by-side, to study Linux. As I tried VMWare hypervisor and found it not usable for my intentions, this is the only solution that allows me to travel and do whatever I need. A mere EUR 160 – well doable.
The Linux course I went to supplied me with a CentOS – Community ENTerprise OS – version 5.2 – DVD in a IA32-64 version. Since none of my systems have that type of processor, I had to download it from the CentOS site. First I got the LiveCD – thinking it would be fine for installation. But it just runs off the CD, there is no easy way to install it that way. So I used Diana to download the DVD – image (3.7GB, in order to get it all in one go, I couldn’t use the Windows systems – connection is lost once in a while and I might have to do it all over again ), burnt that on a DVD (That I could do on Aphrodite) and had it installed yesterday evening. Doing so on an empty VM on Demeter took about 2 hours…
But today I can use Windows XP pros (SP3), OpenVMS, Ubunto Desktop and CENTOS (desktop) on one box. Side by side, abeit slower than stand-alone.
Office Suite
Now running as a trial on the alternate Aphrodite Windows installation, my licence on Office Standard will expire next month. Today, after 10 days, I got a message stating “it’s time to think about an upgrade to my trial version” in some form.
I checked the offering on the US website and I learned the Microsoft Math.
The Home and Student edition is $150, including OneNote, but it lacks Outlook. Outlook by itself is $150 as well. Office OneNotes separately costs $100. The Standard Edition misses Notes but adds Outlook, plain, without business additions.
In my way of calculation that would mean :
$150 (H&S) + $150 (Outlook) – $100 (OneNote) = $200.
Ok, I could live with $250, or, in lesser extent, $300. But a list price of the Standard Edition being $ 400 ? So it’s cheaper, with the same functionality, to buy the S&H edition and Outlook separately, than to obtain the standard edition – and you get OneNotes as an extra. For free.
Should I do so? I tried OpenOffice on both Linux and Windows. But the implementation isn’t flawless at all. And though it is stated to be “office compatible”, it’s too limited. Since the company uses Microsoft, as do my customers, this is not acceptable. But when running Ubuntu, there is no real alternative. For Outlook, there is: Evolution seems to do just what I need – that’s why I want Linux running aside Windows on Aphrodite! Except I cannot add external ‘mail files’ the way I can add personal folders in Outlook. At least, I coundlt find how to yet.
Well, there is still some time. And I can always rely on Demeter otherwise. Office runs fine on the laptop.
Page server
Two days a week in a hotel also means two days dinner in a restaurant or 2 Foodpanda deliveries of my choosing. Paid by the company :). Waiting time there allows me to do some work on the web page generator. It’s now getting into shape. It will definitely be limited in functionality compared to WordPress, especially in the administration area, but massively faster: it’ll be a native VMS executable. I re-found an example of a nice xhtml-based interface, though somewhat outdated, but it might well be very usable. Otherwise I’ll keep it all very basic HTML.
Where my data will come from is still a matter of research. I could use the WordPress databases in MySQL5, but I could also use RMS indexed files, or another database. Or a combination, of course. Or make the choice configurable. All possibilities are still open.
Since my plan is to do this development in C or C++, where have little experience, it’s nice to have a reference site full of examples. And I found ione, thanks to a collegue at my curent job. Despite it’s name, it offers entries to a world of other languages, including Javascript, Python, PHP, and to database information, inclusing MySQL: www.java2s.com . Worth keeping at hand.
Things may get a bit less important if HP takes my (and others) comments serious and will offer full support for MySQL5 and Ajax in the final product, and solves the stack overflow I’ve run into now and thern. Well, MySQL5 support I could do myself, as soon as the sources are available. I’ve done it before. But whether that will be the case remains to be proven.
Nevertheless, it’s a good excercise and offers a far better efficiency. That alone makes development worthwhile.