My only obstacle to installing linux right now is that a lot of my custom tools for NES development were written in C#. I don't know for sure if these tools would work with Mono, or not. In addition, from what I've read and have found, FCEUXDSP 1.07 is only for windows, and it is the only version of FCEUX that has its symbolic debugging feature fully working (as far as I can tell). So I'm wondering if it works with Wine. If I could verify that those things would work on linux I think I'd switch and say goodbye to windows forever.
I've recently decided to kick progressively my Windows XP and replace it by Linux.
Sadly, I've realized that there were no accurate nes emulator with debugging options. As I don't like to use Wine, I've installed a virtual machine with Windows XP.
It works well, and the only problem I've found so far is that the nes sound is really bad (so i muted it).
I use Virtual Box.
Sadly, I've realized that there were no accurate nes emulator with debugging options. As I don't like to use Wine, I've installed a virtual machine with Windows XP.
It works well, and the only problem I've found so far is that the nes sound is really bad (so i muted it).
I use Virtual Box.
FCEUX works fine on Wine.
What distro are you thinking of going with? I would suggest Debian Testing as it is very stable despite the name and has huge software repos and is not bloated like Ubuntu (back when I used 7.04 it was).
What do you mean by bloated? Did you mean RAM, hard disk, or something else?
I think he is talking about delivered packages.
Well, Ubuntu is the least frustrating one I tried. If you are not familiar with Linux some distributions can be quite frustrating.
If you want ready go with little to no work to make it usable linux mint is the best for that, that I know about.
Yeah, I've tried Ubuntu (I have it stored on a portable HDD 
) and it is the best, although totally not foolproof. You will have to tinker with it to do what you want it to do, however if you do something stupid like delete /dev/hda or /dev/sda like I did once... you will be screwed. Irrecoverably.
) and it is the best, although totally not foolproof. You will have to tinker with it to do what you want it to do, however if you do something stupid like delete /dev/hda or /dev/sda like I did once... you will be screwed. Irrecoverably.The stuff that is installed by default. It can be quite an effort to remove all the crap you don't need. It would be faster to go ground up using the server distro they have which is just a barebones install, and by then it seems pointless when you could install Debian instead. I also had problems with X crashing. No matter what I did it would eventually crash(just logging in would do it). That said, it is a great distro for first timers to GNU/Linux, but after a while you may want to try something new(Been on Debian for 3-4 years now, Ubuntu for a6 months or so between that and some other ones .
Finally, I changed my mind and I've set Wine up... and it works perfectly under Ubuntu Karmic Koala 
. Now I'm thinking about kicking my virtual windows machine off...
. Now I'm thinking about kicking my virtual windows machine off...I wouldn't be so quick to do that. I have been using linux as my main OS for a while now, and the need for windows always arises in one situation or another, such as some firmware upgrades are easier in windows, games, tools, and sometimes even hardware usage. (cant get the scanner to work most of the time in linux)
qeed: I have a tendency to have powerful flights of fancy every now and then and wanting to switch to linux is no exception. I have learned the hard way to leave well enough alone so I am going to not worry about it for the time being and continue to focus on my homebrew. =) Cygwin is extremely useful, though. Having cygwin on a windows box is like the best of both worlds. 
So, I've recently installed Ubuntu linux. I have pretty much all of my NES development stuff up and running, except a debugging emulator. FCEUXDSP 1.07 runs in Wine, but just barely (sound is horrible). Famitracker runs ok in wine, but only on the lowest possible sound quality (which is not a problem for me) I was able to compile & run Nestopia and FCEUX natively on linux, but neither of these seem to have any debugging facilities, not even the ability to inspect memory.
Any linux users care to share how they're able to debug NES programs while developing under linux?
Any linux users care to share how they're able to debug NES programs while developing under linux?
On Slashdot, I've been told buy a copy of Microsoft® Windows® 7 and run it in VirtualBox.
I don't want to steal cpow's thunder... but since he hasn't posted yet...
His emu+ide, nesicide, will compile (usually) on Linux. It supports symbolic debugging and directly uses the ".nes.dbg" output files from ld65. It works on windows and Ubuntu. Mattmatteh and I (well, mostly mattmatteh) are ensuring that it works on Gentoo Linux (my platform of choice).
nesicide supports a huge number of powerful debugger breakpoints. You can rig a break-point when the PPU is rendering a given pixel, for example.
His emu+ide, nesicide, will compile (usually) on Linux. It supports symbolic debugging and directly uses the ".nes.dbg" output files from ld65. It works on windows and Ubuntu. Mattmatteh and I (well, mostly mattmatteh) are ensuring that it works on Gentoo Linux (my platform of choice).
nesicide supports a huge number of powerful debugger breakpoints. You can rig a break-point when the PPU is rendering a given pixel, for example.
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Thinking of installing linux...
No you don't!
If windows is working fine for you and does the job, you don't really need linux. If your windows box doesn't work anymore and have all kind of issues and linux fix it then go for it. If not, you may just be wasting your time. Or just install it on another partition and use it once in a while until you get used to it.
I think there is no perfect os anymore: just use the one that you like and don't care about the rest. The rest is just people religious war about which one is better. Just go on a site like apple insider to see how biased some people can be! (...)
Basically, if it's not broken, don't fix it.
P.s. I'm not irradiated yet, just don't post often these days.
I use linux on another machine because Windows doesn't support FUSE filesystems.
Banshaku wrote:
If windows is working fine for you and does the job, you don't really need linux. If your windows box doesn't work anymore and have all kind of issues and linux fix it then go for it.
Or if you're building a new box to replace an obsolete box and you don't want to spend 130 USD on a Windows license.
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P.s. I'm not irradiated yet, just don't post often these days.
That makes two of you safe. I'm thankful.
Dwedit: Windows does have Dokan, which looks like the same thing as FUSE. Do you complain that not enough FUSE file systems are ported to Dokan? Or is it the amd64 code signing requirement again?
Because you can't run "autoconf \ ./configure \ make \ sudo make install" on an existing FUSE filesystem to magically turn it into a Dokan filesystem.
Well personally I think that "windows vs linux" war is a bit stupid because it's possible and even quite simple to have both of them running on the same machine.
The only VERY important rule is that you need to always install windows first and linux last. If you install Windows on a PC which already have a linux session, Windows might (and probably will) ignore it and install it's own booting partition, and not even have a menu that allows you to choose to boot on an other partition (this is really bad microsoft, but what can I do about it ?).
Also the second rule of thumb is that whenever you'll have to re-install of of the systems (windows OR linux) be sure to backup ALL your important data safely before doing so. According to what I said on point 1, a windows re-installation will imply at least a partial linux re-installation. A linux re-instaltion could damage something in your data as well.
Third rule of thumb it's a very good idea to keep all your important data on a third partition which does not contain either of the OSes. This partition should be formatted FAT32 (or maybe NTSF) but not the linux formatting else you won't be able to acess your important data from Windows.
The only VERY important rule is that you need to always install windows first and linux last. If you install Windows on a PC which already have a linux session, Windows might (and probably will) ignore it and install it's own booting partition, and not even have a menu that allows you to choose to boot on an other partition (this is really bad microsoft, but what can I do about it ?).
Also the second rule of thumb is that whenever you'll have to re-install of of the systems (windows OR linux) be sure to backup ALL your important data safely before doing so. According to what I said on point 1, a windows re-installation will imply at least a partial linux re-installation. A linux re-instaltion could damage something in your data as well.
Third rule of thumb it's a very good idea to keep all your important data on a third partition which does not contain either of the OSes. This partition should be formatted FAT32 (or maybe NTSF) but not the linux formatting else you won't be able to acess your important data from Windows.
For me I got fed up with XP just a few days ago when I attempted to help a family member with their virus infected XP laptop. I was going to just reinstall XP for them and they said hey why don't you check out such and such a technical support website so we can try to get rid of the virus first? So I went to the suggested site, and got the same virus. Her laptop was already so far gone that you couldn't even see any files in C:\ in safe mode. When I realized mine started deleting files and going haywire, I was able to get into safe mode before it was too late, and back up my files. I hate feeling like windows is this gigantic piece of swiss cheese for viruses. So, I'm on linux now. I may eventually cave and go back to windows in order to finish my game, as there are several things for NES development that seem to work so much better on windows (debugging, famitracker)...but, I'm going to give this a chance, see how far I get before I go insane
I'm no expert but you have any decent antivirus (i.e. anything but avast) and are very careful when going on porn/warez/torrent sites you should have no problem.
At worst use linux to go to the above category of sites and windows for romhacking tools, as I said there is no problem having both on the same machine.
In case you haven't noticed THERE IS NO HOLES IN OUR CHEESE.
At worst use linux to go to the above category of sites and windows for romhacking tools, as I said there is no problem having both on the same machine.
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I hate feeling like windows is this gigantic piece of swiss cheese for viruses.
In case you haven't noticed THERE IS NO HOLES IN OUR CHEESE.
All your cheese are belong to us.
Bregalad wrote:
I'm no expert but you have any decent antivirus (i.e. anything but avast)
Which freeware antivirus do you recommend?
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I hate feeling like windows is this gigantic piece of swiss cheese for viruses.
In case you haven't noticed THERE IS NO HOLES IN OUR CHEESE.
Some Emmentaler cheeses have eyes caused by CO2 bubbles; others don't. But you're right that there are other cheeses from Switzerland.
I'm currently satisfied with AVG free.
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Which freeware antivirus do you recommend?
On Windows XP I used a few different ones...
The one that I always liked the best, is Malware bytes. It might not be the right thing, because it's completly manual, but it helped me in quite a few cases of virus attacks.
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Well personally I think that "windows vs linux" war is a bit stupid because it's possible and even quite simple to have both of them running on the same machine.
Very true! I always did that and I never had problems with it. I just never used Windows ever again, unless I REALLy needed it ^^
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The only VERY important rule is that you need to always install windows first and linux last.
Wouldn't call this a rule. As long as your Linux system is running properly and you know what you're doing, you can install Windows last. The trick includes hiding the Linux partitions and reserving free space for Windows.
Later you will have to manually edit your bootloader config(In most cases that would be GRUB) as well to actually be able to boot Windows.
It's tedious, but one thing I learned since I use Linux is, that nothing is impossible. There are just the easy ways and the harder ones.
But I agree about the backup stuff ;3
About getting the sound right with emulators and/or FamiTracker in wine.
I had that problem and I tried many different things to get around it.
The closest thing to a solution was to use a low-latency patch on my kernel.
It works.
But that's it...
It doesn't sound nice and I still sometimes have some problems with sound that don't make sense to me...
Abput Virtualbox for emulation:
I have actually never tried that, cause I'm usually to lazy to boot up a Virtual machine
Sounds possible to me, but I doubt that you'll have better results than with wine.
Ubuntu was always my favourite choice. It is true though that it installs quite a bit of useless stuff and it is hard to get rid of it all, but still it is a nice system.
To reduce your chance to install a virus on windows XP, if you would set your main user as not an administrator, that would help in the end.
I'm sure people would said "yeah but that wouldn't stop a malicious software to delete files that are not set with administrator rights thought", yes, but the same thing can be done on linux or any OS too.
But anyway. I don't want to say that windows XP is better, it's getting old after all. I just want to re-iterate that all OS have security issues to some degree and depending how you use it, it will make you life harder. So if, for example, use a not really patched XP box in administrator mode with no firewall and using IE6: you're looking for trouble. Same thing for linux in the same condition (it may take longer but it could happen).
In the end, it's all in the way you use it. But I don't like OS "wars" anymore so use any OS you like. I got some virus in the past too on MS OS and it's not because I got them myself, it just other people told me that their external drive "were safe" (...). In normal usage, very rarely.
I'm sure people would said "yeah but that wouldn't stop a malicious software to delete files that are not set with administrator rights thought", yes, but the same thing can be done on linux or any OS too.
But anyway. I don't want to say that windows XP is better, it's getting old after all. I just want to re-iterate that all OS have security issues to some degree and depending how you use it, it will make you life harder. So if, for example, use a not really patched XP box in administrator mode with no firewall and using IE6: you're looking for trouble. Same thing for linux in the same condition (it may take longer but it could happen).
In the end, it's all in the way you use it. But I don't like OS "wars" anymore so use any OS you like. I got some virus in the past too on MS OS and it's not because I got them myself, it just other people told me that their external drive "were safe" (...). In normal usage, very rarely.
Why isn't Avast a good antivirus program???
My brother's PC once got infected with the fake antivirus program, and he was running Avast at the time.
Because it SIGNIFICANLY slows down the matchine, especially at startup. It's constant look for updates which takes most of your CPU for about 10 minutes is a major bother.... you'd as well use a 8 year old PC.
Does anyone here really need a virus scanner? I run nothing, just watch file sizes and know what your downloading. Never had a problem. 
Tell me how linux works out. I wanted to try it, we'll see if we get a PC worth maybe putting it on and replacing XP.
I run nothing, just watch file sizes and know what your downloading. Never had a problem. Tell me how linux works out. I wanted to try it, we'll see if we get a PC worth maybe putting it on and replacing XP.3gengames wrote:
Does anyone here really need a virus scanner?
Does anyone here really share a PC with someone else gullible enough to click on the fake AV's warning? NovaYoshi used to share a PC with his brother and his aunt before he got his own laptop.
tepples wrote:
3gengames wrote:
Does anyone here really need a virus scanner?
Does anyone here really share a PC with someone else gullible enough to click on the fake AV's warning? NovaYoshi used to share a PC with his brother and his aunt before he got his own laptop.
That is a good point I guess.
tepples wrote:
NovaYoshi used to share a PC with his brother and his aunt before he got his own laptop.
Man, I don't know why you still hang around with the guy... I wouldn't care if he's family or not, if the guy is as troublesome as you make it seem I wouldn't want to have anything to do with him.
Bregalad wrote:
Because it SIGNIFICANLY slows down the matchine, especially at startup. It's constant look for updates which takes most of your CPU for about 10 minutes is a major bother.... you'd as well use a 8 year old PC.
Hmm, yeah, but I still think it's better than AVG, but that's ME anyway. ^_^;; Any suggestion, other than AVG?
Well, being rather impulsive I've already reverted to windows XP. I don't have the patience required to get linux to, for example, play sound properly, or another example, use vsync in my favorite emulators =D. What I'm realizing is, if you want linux to work as well as windows you have to make it a hobby. I already have a couple of time consuming hobbies, one of which has nothing to do with computers. So, I'm willing to pay Microsoft $$$ to give me an OS that just bloody works =) Linux is getting startlingly close to an os that "just works" but it isn't *quite* there yet! (at least not for what I use it for---for people who just want to browse the internet and use facebook I'd say its there)