[UK-CONTEST] Macs, PCs& Linux

Sat Nov 18 19:21:11 EST 2006

Hi Jonathan

At the expense of boring many perhaps, I'll also copy to the
list, since it does seem to be an important matter.

Thanks for your comprehensive reply. I shall try to be
concise.

It is a truism that everyone has their favourite contest
logger, and the Windows variety probably fall into three
main groups, viz Writelog, N1MM and Wintest. I confess that
I believe N1MM to be head and shoulders above the others,
and this from a WL migrant. Those who came from a CT ( or
NA) background will prefer WT, and those coming from TRlog
will prefer N1MM. WL has its origins in RTTY contesting, but
does a reasonable job at other modes. What is important is
that all these loggers are highly developed, and as you say
it is unlikely that Mac ( or Linux) users will provide
critical mass to support development of a quality logger
anytime soon.

Thus we are faced with the alternatives of using a PC to
support these loggers, and suffer the ghastly inadequacies
thereof, or use "emulation" on another OS.

I do understand that pure emulation suffers from a serious
speed overhead, and it is interesting that the Mac OS will
shortly address this issue, by permitting the running of
pure Windows on its hardware. However, I must say that does
make me nervous, since surely the inadequacies of Windows
are a part of the OS itself, and therefore would be
replicated in all their "glory" under the Bootcamp system
you describe. Of course, I'd be delighted if you could
disabuse me of this point of view?

If however I am right, it seems that there is little short
term alternative but to stick with Windows machines, or at
least invest in a 2007 Mac, and enjoy its far superior OS
for garden variety applications such as WP, Spreadsheet,
Database, but still be able to run Windows( specifically
contest logger) applications at the ( I agree small)
inconvenience of rebooting.

Oh well, perhaps one day <wry smile>

73

Clive
GW3NJW

-----Original Message-----
From: uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com]On Behalf Of
Jonathan G0DVJ
Sent: 18 November 2006 22:45
To: UK contest list
Subject: [UK-CONTEST] Macs, PCs& Linux

Hi Clive, (and copied to the list in case others are
interested) ...

I guess with a question like you posed I had better step
forward as a
mac devotee!

Like you suggest, I have done everything except contest
logging on an
OSX mac for many years now.  I have also been working from
time to
time with Don Agro VE3VRW who does some superb general
operating and
logging software (MacLoggerDX - MLDX) and Satellite Software
(MacDoppler) to see if he would turn his hand to a killer
contest
logger but our efforts suffer from the fact that there has
been
insufficient demand from the Amateur/Mac community to
justify a
commercial development, and also he is not a contester (and
most of
the decent PC contest logging programs are developed by
enthusiastic
contesters!).   There is some support for the less demanding
(mainly
S&P single-op) contester in MLDX coupled with a
post-processing app
by Scott NE1RD).

So for the past few years I have been employing a Windoze PC
to do
the contest logging.  However with the advent of all Macs
with Intel
Chips now, there are other options.  I have not had an Intel
Mac to
play with in the shack yet but I expect to do this and some
serious
testing in the new year when I plan my next Apple hardware
upgrade!
But to answer your question, there are a number of options
for
running Windows Apps on Macs now...

1) Boot Camp from Apple
(http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/) -
which allows you to install a separate Windows o/s in a
partition it
organises for you and then boot the whole machine into XP
(will
support Vista later too) to run anything you like.  Because
its Apple
they supply all the right drivers to drive the Apple
hardware in all
the machines to work within Boot Camp.  Its a pretty good
beta at the
moment but will be integrated into the next version of OSX
("Leopard") due Q1 2007.   Because it boots into Windows,
everything
works with no emulation and its very fast on the latest Core
2 Duo
processor Macs.   The downside is that you have to reboot
for Windows
- I consider this no problem for contest logging.

2) Parallels Desktop for Mac
(http://www.parallels.com/en/products/
workstation/mac/) - which is an app that runs on OSX (so no
rebooting) and allows you to run any number of o/s side by
side
(various flavours of Windows or Linux etc.)  providing you
have
enough RAM etc.  Not quite as fast as Boot Camp but still as
quick as
many PCs for many applications.  No good for fast action
gaming but
apparently pretty good for other stuff.   Again like Boot
Camp you
have to install Windows - this time on the virtual machine
that
Parallels creates for you.   There are a few funnies with
the Mac
hardware which have been reported but it gets better with
each update
and seems to be quite popular.

3) CrossOver Mac for OSX by Codeweavers
(http://www.codeweavers.com/
products/cxmac/) - which allows a very specific but growing
set of
Windows apps to run within OSX without needing any Windows
installation or a Windows licence at all.  Not much good for
amateur
use (i.e. contest logging apps) but ok if all you need is
stuff like
MS Outlook, MS Visio, or MS  Project etc.

4) VMware (http://www.vmware.com/news/releases/mac.html) -
not so
much known about this product yet but essentially provides a
virtual
machine interface so you canrun an PC o/s on the OSX system.
They
have a history of providing similar virtualisation software
for other
platforms so no reason to think their new OSX product will
be any
different.

I plan to use Boot Camp in Leopard when released and when I
have my
new Intel mac hardware.  I have no reason to believe it
won't run
stuff like SD, N1MM, TacLog and all the other popular
contest
loggers.  I hope to be able to test these on a borrowed
Intel Mac in
the next month or so.  If anyone else has already done this,
I would
be pleased to know.

Of course, if the fancy takes you, with a Mac you can also
open a
UNIX terminal window if that's your fancy, and also run X11
apps
(there is a VHF & above contest logger which someone has
written for
X11 for example! ).

Any other questions, don't hesitate to email me.
There is also a pretty useful ham mac mailing list (though
US-centric
at present) -
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/ham-mac

73,
Jonathan G0DVJ
--

On Nov 18, 2006, at 5:22 pm, Clive Whelan wrote:

> A tad off topic, but then perhaps not?
>
> I am increasingly fed up with the Windows OS, in respect
of
> instability and other issues. Yes I use XP, an order
better
> than Win9x, but still less than satisfactory with the load
I
> currently place upon it, particularly of late with so much
> USB stuff strutting its stuff. Now I know that I can do
> virtually all that I need outside of contesting software
on
> a Mac or Linux, but of course contesting software is soooo
> heavily biased towards the PC architecture.
>
> Now I know that Linux does have some form of Windows
> emulation, Mac OS I'm unsure about. So my basic question
is
> whether either of those systems is currently viable in its
> support of Windows software that it could run say N1MM (
et
> al). I would gladly bin my PC hardware and invest in a Mac
> if that were the case.
>
> Anyone know the score?
>
>
> 73
>
>
> Clive
> GW3NJW
>
> _______________________________________________
> UK-Contest mailing list
> UK-Contest at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/uk-contest

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