Linux Geeks in the house?

This is going to any Linux masters that may be circulating at POTN..

Is it feasible to set up a linux installation with one of the Windows Emulators to get a successful super powered graphics workstation running in real 64BIT and get Windows apps to run, with color management, in that environment?

If so, How difficult is the set up?

What about driver support?
Would drivers need to be coded for Linux? or for the emulated OS?

I can get more specific, but I get the feeling that we will blow wholes in the idea long before we get that far.

But still as guidelines,
I must be able to use RSP or Light room for windows,
I must be able to run PSCS3
I must be able to use full color management including a spyder type "puck"
I must be able to print to an IPF5000 for the PS plug in.

If you don't get the answers you need, let me know and I'll ask my linux geek buddy for you. He should know the answers to your questions.

Well as nobody has replied as yet, I'll dive in ...

Running Windows Apps

Two ways to do this ... run applications in Linux using something like Wine or the Codeweavers equivalent. This would be better integrated with Linux itself although I can't be sure your list of apps will run properly. However Codeweavers will be in trouble if PSCS3 won't run ... some of their major customers will be considerably annoyed if it doesn't (PSCS2 support is one of the reasons Codeweavers exist). See :-

http://www.codeweavers​.com/

The second way is to run Windows itself in a virtual machine. Not as well integrated with the Linux side, but you can pretty much guarantee that everything will run. Something like Vmware Server (which I run) or the new KVMed QEMU (which is new, but may over time be a better choice).

Driver Support

I'll have to be very general here as you haven't mentioned which devices you need support for. In general you need Linux to support the devices ... for Linux apps and Wine/Codeweaver enabled apps. For Vmware you only need drivers in Windows for USB devices you 'attach' to the virtual machine.

If you're buying a machine from scratch to do this, you will get the smoothest choice by selecting a machine built to run Linux ... I kind of like Sun myself. On the graphics card front Nvidia seems to be ahead although I've heard the Intel graphics options work well with Linux.

Ah! You don't by any chance mean support for 64-bit drivers ? No real issue there as most drivers are open-source anyway, and those that are not are almost always supplied in a 64-bit option.

As for your printer, well that isn't supported under Linux. However as you're using the PS plugin for printing there's a pretty good chance it will just work. At worst you will have to print from PS in Vmware. Hmm. Not good ... an Epson 4800 would do better here.

Colour Management

Here is where I get a little vague because I've only recently started looking at it myself and as my Epson R2400 produces printouts that match the image on my Eizo monitor pretty well (by eye) I'm not in a great hurry. Linux does support colour management but it's a little "hackish" for now.

The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Linux_color_man​agement) looks like a good starting point, but :-

You will probably have to calibrate your display using your "puck" under Windows. Vmware should cope with this; at worst you would have to boot into Windows to calibrate ... not a major problem as the profile will be fairly static.

The application support for using colour profiles is a little young ... for instance you would have to use the development version of GIMP for profile support (not a big issue as you'll be using PS3 and the new version of GIMP is almost ready for release). As to using profiles under Windows apps, I don't see that as being a problem.

Overall, I'm not entirely sure why you would want to switch to Linux if you must run those Windows apps. I'm not sure going 64-bit buys you enough here, and the question mark over the printer support is big enough that it sounds like you're better staying with Windows (and you don't often hear me say that!). If you had a printer supported under Linux and intended trying the Linux alternatives to Windows apps, I'd say go for it.

Ask yorself why do I as a consumer NEED 64 bit support right now? Is it a buzz word or something my apps DEMAND?

Kadath wrote in post #3199593
Ask yorself why do I as a consumer NEED 64 bit support right now? Is it a buzz word or something my apps DEMAND?

Well I don't think that was the question, but ...

It comes in handy if you have an application that requires more than 3Gb of memory; there are some performance gains to be had although that's probably more a result of the cleanup of the x86 instruction set than any 64-bit stuff (although image processing might be an area where 64-bit ints gains large performance benefits).

Is it worth the hassle? I can't answer that ... I'm already a 64-bit Linux user already and I kind of enjoy the hassle anyway!

You'd probably be best off to give VMWare a spin.

Yes, you can do all this, it just won't be easy. There is color management hardware that supports Linux, and once your screen is calibrated, it's good in any OS, right?

I know you can use a trick to run CS2 in Wine, not sure about the other apps, but Bochs or some such will run anything in a virtualized copy of Windows, as long as you don't need 3D support.

Kadath wrote in post #3199593
Ask yorself why do I as a consumer NEED 64 bit support right now? Is it a buzz word or something my apps DEMAND?

It's all about the RAM my freind,. right now I have three GB of ram working and another three that sit there...
Unless I boot to WinXP 64 where it all gets used, but some other issues arise. (like no printer driver and some apps that aren't too happy)

hmv wrote in post #3199840
Is it worth the hassle? I can't answer that ... I'm already a 64-bit Linux user already and I kind of enjoy the hassle anyway!

thanks so much for your replies,. this has answered a LOT!

The VMware option looks like the best route if I were to try and tackle this,. so let me ask this.

If I have some form of 64bit Linux installed and 8GB of RAM...
And I run WindowsXP in VMware,. am I not going to be still running WinXP 32 bit and thus only using that same 3 GB of ram?
All those apps would only use the same limited RAM that is available in a regular 32bit XP install?

If so,. could I at least get the WinXP apps to use a RAMDisk made in Linux?

thanks again.. this has been a big help.

Have you tried Vista x64? It is supposedly much better than XP x64 which was kinda cobbled together.

Well actually XP 64 is about the most robust and stable OS I have run, it is based on Windows Server 2003 Kernal (can you call a Win OS "kernal"?)

It rocks,..
It gets a bad rap for lack of support from MS, despite it's being awesome,. and MS ignores it as they want everyone to get Vista..
So funny that the best OS form MS was made into a bastard red headed step child almost the day it was available for sale.

It's just that the driver for the printer is not there, and that most apps are still not 64 bit and thus won't use the RAM either..

No need to mess with Vista as Canon still doesn't have a 64bit Vista driver for this printer either.
All this and the fact that Vista 64 bit is running the same apps and operations a good deal slower than they run on XP64..


My guess is they will, some day,.. and then I will be forced,. kicking and screaming,. to futz around with another MS OS Install.. (that would make three for this PC now as it currently Dual Boots XP32 and XP 64.. )

I should have got a MAC..

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #3201525
The VMware option looks like the best route if I were to try and tackle this,. so let me ask this.

There is some performance penalty for using Vmware so Wine/Codeweavers is still worth looking at and use Vmware as a fallback option.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #3201525
If I have some form of 64bit Linux installed and 8GB of RAM...
And I run WindowsXP in VMware,. am I not going to be still running WinXP 32 bit and thus only using that same 3 GB of ram?
All those apps would only use the same limited RAM that is available in a regular 32bit XP install?

Yes the 3Gbyte limit still applies ... assuming you allocate a full 4Gbytes to the Vmware machine. However the remaining memory will still be available to Linux to use as a disk cache (effectively eliminating the need for a ramdisk).

Of course you could also do roughly the same thing with Vmware under Windows XP64 ... fall back to a Xp32 for printing.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #3201525
thanks so much for your replies,. this has answered a LOT!

The VMware option looks like the best route if I were to try and tackle this,. so let me ask this.

If I have some form of 64bit Linux installed and 8GB of RAM...
And I run WindowsXP in VMware,. am I not going to be still running WinXP 32 bit and thus only using that same 3 GB of ram?
All those apps would only use the same limited RAM that is available in a regular 32bit XP install?

If so,. could I at least get the WinXP apps to use a RAMDisk made in Linux?

thanks again.. this has been a big help.

sure, create the ramdisk on boot with this:
http://opendevice.blog​spot.com …ram-disk-to-use-with.html

Then tell vmware to use it as a drive.
hmmmmm could even create a virtual vmware disk for installing applications too in xp then copy it into a linux ramdisk and mount it in vmware for fast program load times.
Then have a script that copies it back too the hard drive when you install new applications.

using samba and storing the photo files under linux directly and mounting the drive in xp would be faster and more stable than using a vmware virtual disk which have a size limit.

Then you can use rsync to back it up too your server every night.

Vista x64 has much better compatibility with programs though.

x64 XP was a bit on the edge with this as anything not made specifically for x64 tended to have problems. (Our office runs both Vista and XP x64 and Vista has much better compatibility for being only a bit slower).