[McIDAS #JAV-781741]: McIDAS-X on Windows or Linux

Hi Kwan,

re:
> It looks like I am getting into some unknown territories.

That is the fun part of life :-)

re:
> My experience on
> running a Linux emulator has been with cygwin only.

A VM is _not_ an emulator; it is a full blown OS with all of the bells,
whistles and requirements.

re:
> After a search on the
> internet, I have downloaded and installed VMware Player onto my 64-bit
> laptop running Windows 8 with 4GB RAM.  I then downloaded from
> http://virtual-machine.org/centos-6-x86_64-64bit-vmware-image-download a
> file called centos-6.4-x86_64-virtual-machine-org.001 but I am not sure
> what to do with it next.

Hmm  I will need to check out that file to see if it is what you need.
I have a CentOS 6.1 x86_64 image that I used for my VM (it has since
been upgraded to the current v6 release, 6.6 by 'yum update's), and
it only required me to install a few packages to be fully functional
in the way that I wanted.  I can let you have that file if it would
make things go more smoothly.  We would need to coordinate me making the
file available for download as it is large enough that we would not 
want to leave it on our FTP server for very long.  Or, I can send you
the file if you have a place I can SCP or FTP it to.

re:
> Does the Virtual Machine run like an independent Linux operating system
> inside VMware Player, which is run under Windows?

Yes.  It is a fully functional installation of the OS chosen (CentOS in
your and my case).

re:
> Did you get Windows
> system updates from time to time?

I am not sure I understand the question.  Windows is still the primary OS,
and it continues with its updates in the same way it would if VMware
Player were not installed at all.

re:
> This can be quite disruptive if I want
> to run a shell script in a regular interval (e.g. every hour).

I do not understand this comment.  When the VM is running (like it is right now
for me), Windows is still running.  Both environments are fully functional
and active.  You can, of course, choose to only run the VM when you need.
I sort of do this as I shutdown my VM each day and start it anew the next
morning (I don't have to do this; I could put the process to sleep).

re:
> Does the Virtual Machine have cron?

The VM _is_ Linux.  It is full blown and runs the same as if it were
installed on bare metal.  The beauty of the VM approach is that
you would have both Windows and Linux available to you and be able
to switch back and forth with a single mouse click.  Files/directories/etc.
can be shared between the VM and Windows also as can items shared on a
clipboard (meaning that one can cut and paste between the VM and Windows).
Also, I can run an ADDE server in my Linux VM and access it from the
IDV (or whatever) in Windows.  This fills a big hole that currently
exists in the IDV which is being able to use calibrated values from
locally held image data.  McIDAS-V supports this capability because it
contains a set of ADDE servers in the distribution; this is something
that the IDV has needed for years.

The dual Windows/Linux functionality is incredibly useful (to me,
at least).  Again, I have been using this setup for several years now,
and I can't imagine working in just Windows or just Linux any more!

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: JAV-781741
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed