I work on Xojo on OS X, I have a laptop running windows 7 which I use for testing my X platform apps on Windows but have never bothered with Linux. I am working on an app at the moment which I need to also build for Linux but 1) I have no testing machine 2) Have no experience of Linux.
Can I set up Linux on my Windows machine as dual boot or the Like?
What version of Linux should I set up and test on?
Where do I get installation of Linux?
Thanks.
I use Parallels for both Windows and Linux testing. For Linux, I use Mint, and almost all Linux distros are free to download.
We use VMWare or Parallels on Mac OS X and you can Remote Debug (in Windows and Linux) all you want. Ubuntu, Debian are some of the big ones but I’m sure others will have other suggestions.
FWIW, we are Mac shop and run VMWare. Then we have multiple Windows versions, and multiple Linux distro’s to test against. Then we have a crappy Windows 8 laptop for ‘real’ Windows testing. You’d be surprised at what a different a standard (slow) laptop hard drive makes when it comes to some applications.
Remote debugging is your friend on the same machine because it’s pretty fast.
[quote=149407:@Mike Charlesworth]I work on Xojo on OS X, I have a laptop running windows 7 which I use for testing my X platform apps on Windows but have never bothered with Linux. I am working on an app at the moment which I need to also build for Linux but 1) I have no testing machine 2) Have no experience of Linux.
Can I set up Linux on my Windows machine as dual boot or the Like?
What version of Linux should I set up and test on?
Where do I get installation of Linux?
[/quote]
One of the best Linux distributions for PC and Xojo is Linux Mint Cinnamon 32 bit, which you can get as an ISO file at
Linuxmint.com (click Downloads)
Download the ISO, and use Mac OS X Disk Utility to burn it to a DVD.
Also, get the Linux Mint user guide PDF
It installs as double boot, so you can have both Windows and LM on the same machine.
Oh. I see Kem advises a VM. Good idea, if you do not want to install. On Windows, I use the free Virtual Box from Oracle, available from virtualbox.org
With VirtualBox, you do not need to burn a DVD, it can use the ISO file to boot directly from it as virtual disk.
I like this idea, virtual box looks good. So if I install this on windows I can run linux windowed on top of windows?
Yes i’m not familiar with this either, I need to have a read up.
And with all the flavours of Linux available, should I be testing in as many as possible or is it safe to test on one and assume it will be ok on the others?
Yup. You can also run different versions of Windows and Linux, for instance for test purpose. It is very convenient.
Yes, Virtual Machines and the Remote Debugger are very useful.
http://www.xojo.com/blog/en/2013/12/remote-debugging-and-virtual-machines.php
You will soon see that Linux desktop offers a world of hurt, and why it hasn’t caught on in a huge way, which is a shame. So many choices, flavors and variations, makes a Starbucks menu look simple. Rock solid OS tho’
I recently posted a quick summary of my freeware app for a niche market (https://forum.xojo.com/17860-interesting-user-os-stats) which has 37% of downloads, yet 96+% of support tickets. Majority because the 64bit installs of Linux do not install the 32 bit libraries, and with newest versions becomes a science project to install. Looking forward to Xojo 64bit
Many thanks everyone. Looks like i’ve been missing out on some powerful tools in the way of remote debugging and virtual machines. Lots for me to chew on there.
Linux sounds like a can of worms but I must release for all 3 os’s so sounds like I need to get stuck in a see what happens.
I run Linux and windows inside VirtualBox on my Mac. Works very well. One bonus there is that you can have a variety of Linux installs and switch between them fairly quickly (faster than setting up a multi-boot machine). Make sure each one has a unique IP address and you can configure each in the run remotely menu of Xojo.
Getting the debugger stub into the virtual machine has always been the biggest pain of the process…
Another nice thing about virtual machines is that you can restrict memory and CPU and really see any lag, bottlenecks etc.
You have no idea …
If you must, you must, but personally, I have abstained. It is already impossible to test on every distribution because of their sheer number and the number of versions per brand. And as mentioned already, until Xojo is 64 bit, each time someone downloads your software, you are certain to get a support request 9 out of 10 times.
For an OS which as far as desktop is concerned represents at most 2% of the total desktop OSes, it looks like a lot of pain for very little gain.
[quote=149418:@Mike Charlesworth]I like this idea, virtual box looks good. So if I install this on windows I can run linux windowed on top of windows?
[/quote]
of just install the linux on the mac OS X which is what i do.
[quote=149407:@Mike Charlesworth]I work on Xojo on OS X, I have a laptop running windows 7 which I use for testing my X platform apps on Windows but have never bothered with Linux. I am working on an app at the moment which I need to also build for Linux but 1) I have no testing machine 2) Have no experience of Linux.
Can I set up Linux on my Windows machine as dual boot or the Like?
What version of Linux should I set up and test on?
Where do I get installation of Linux?
Thanks.[/quote]
Virtualbox is also very good hypervisor.
the only thing is i don’t know how to share folder in my linux mint machine… i want to transfer files to the linux machine.
Which VM ? It is simple with VMWare Fusion, but with VirtualBox, you want to install Guest Additions. See Chapter 4. Guest Additions
i am using VirtualBox
The important things to think about for Linux -
If you’re going to run the IDE on Linux, make sure that you provide 4GB of RAM and 2 Processors for the virtual machine. While built apps do not require this much horsepower, the IDE is a very hungry application in itself. Also, the more lightweight the Linux desktop, the better. This is why you’ll see us recommend Linux Mint as your development version.
For development, choose a 32bit native distribution. Also, you’ll want to mine the Linux channel here for tips on getting a 64bit Linux distro to support the 32bit apps that Xojo currently creates. While OS X and Windows currently handle 32bit apps in their 64bit versions automatically, Linux is quite a different creature.
As I said, the Linux apps that Xojo creates are 32bit, so you need to make sure that you have the information to share with your users about making sure that their systems have the proper 32bit compatibility libraries install if they are using a 64bit distribution.
And most importantly - Unix/Linux is very user friendly. It’s just very picky about who its “Friends” are. 