Hi
I have been working with Adrian Cole from Australia, (many thanks to Adrian for his patience and detailed feedback), to get the G8JCFSDR working once again with XP, and also to make installing the G8JCFSDR on Linux + Wine systems as straightforward as possible,? hence why I'm putting out a request for people to beta test the G8JCFSDR Build 284 release please.
What’s new in Build 284 ?
?? Windows XP Compatibility
?? Build 284 restores Windows XP compatibility. I think I inadvertently broke XP compatibility in Build 280 – apologies to all those running Windows XP.
Linux + Wine Compatibility
?? Build 284 brings the G8JCFSDR to the Linux + Wine environment in a straightforward to install manner, ie as close to the Windows install process/experience as possible.
I only have Ubuntu, Debian and Mint environments, so users with other environments who can test things out would be most welcome.
?
New Installer Technology
? Since its first release, the G8JCFSDR has used InstallShield Express V3.5 SP4 installer technology from back in 2001 !! Express is getting very long in the tooth,
? and just does not work properly under Windows 10. Express had worked properly on every OS upto and including Windows 7, but W10 broke it,
? (I used a W7 VM under W10 to carry on building the installer packages, but it was getting quite tedious shipping files into the
? W7 VM whenever a change was made.
? Anyway, I have finally bitten the bullet and summoned up the courage to try something different and upto date, driven by the W10 problem,
? and the need for something a lot more flexible to deal with the needs of the Linux + Wine environment,
? so I settled on INNO setup (with PERL scripting handling the LINUX specific bits).
? I would also like to know that the new installer works properly, and of course that means “guinea pigs” aka field testers please !!
? Any problems, suggestions for improvements would be most gratefully received.
The G8JCFSDR Build 284 has been tested under
Mint 19.3 Tricia with Wine 4.0 (32 bit)
Mint 20 Ulyana with Wine 5.0 (64bit)
The setup program may be downloaded from
On a windows machine just install the G8JCFSDR with a double-click, ie just like you would for any setup.exe.
On a Linux + Wine system, you may find that you need to open up a terminal session
cd ~/Downloads???? #or wherever you have downloaded the setup program to
then type
wine setup_G8JCFSDR_284.exe
and follow the on-screen instructions. I have attached the Linux + Wine section of the G8JCFSDR User Guide covering installation on Linux + Wine systems, NB the instructions refer to COM1 but the script will in fact use COM16 (I need to update the User Guide) which is a highly unlikely COM port mapping - the majority of Windows programs can only deal with COM1 - COM4, so a 'collision'? with an existing wine COM port mapping should be highly unlikely.
The only difference between the Windows install process and the Linux + Wine process is that an additional pre-install step will be displayed before the traditional (for Windows) gui installer kicks in.
Any suggestions for improvements, problems, bug reports, would be most appreciated.
Many Thanks & 73
Peter - GM8JCF
