A Linux setup for a noob, questions and requirements!

[vanpeebles]

I have some questions but first a small explanation. At the moment I'm creating a game in ACT mainly using qemulator running on an old p3 laptop with windows xp, which has started to pack up.

The things I need are:

an easy to use text editor like notepad ++
a way to view and edit a word file (open office I suppose?)
be able run act on the ql, make my game code, and also copy the files for back up to a usb stick.

I've got a new (old) laptop on the way but it will have no windows on or serials etc. I'm wondering if I should go down the linux route? But I've very little experience of linux (not a problem, I only want it to do those three things) but I've no idea what linux ql emulation is like compared to q-emulator which for me is excellent.

Any recommendations, suggestions or software to use is most welcome

I did download and burn a ubuntu disc the other day to help with recovery on the old laptop. So I could try that for starters?

[Mr_Navigator]

I have successfully installed Q4OS linux distribution on my old XP only laptop http://q4os.org/

Installed WINE, download from their website https://www.winehq.org/

and then installed QPC2 v4 relatively easily through WINE

I as of yet have not been able to do the same with QemuLator though

Do you want step by step instructions?

[Mr_Navigator]

oops nearly forgot why using Q4OS

Well it needs little overhead so can run on any XP machines
It looks like Windows

Q4OS looks like QDOS at first glance, however that was a by product, and not a reason for using it.

[vanpeebles]

Just to add, the new laptop will be a core2duo with 3gb of ram so hardware wise it should be ok I'm not sure if I want to emulate twice, sounds a bit confusing. Have you had any success with any linux based QL emulators?

[Mr_Navigator]

That was my next step but not until next week, I have a non-QL deadline this week that I am pontificating around. All of a sudden its more important to be online instead of learning my lines for AMDRAM.

[vanpeebles]

polop-onies!

[swensont]

My current system is running Lubuntu. I started with Lubuntu because I had an older laptop to test out Linux on and Lubuntu has lower CPU and memory requirements. I stayed with it because I like the LDXE desktop.

Lubuntu comes with LibreOffice (MS Office clone). I've also installed OpenOffice. For editing, there is Leappad. It comes with gedit, but it has too many bugs.

For the QL, I use SMSQmulator (with Java installed) and Q-emulator (using WINE). Wine installed easily and so did Q-Emualtor. I have not tried QPC2 yet.

I try to keep Open Source for all my needs. Here is what I use:
E-mail - Thunderbird
Web - FireFox
DTP - Scribus
Player - VLC
Office - Open Office (document, database, spreadsheet, presentation)
Graphics - GIMP

When my XP laptop died, I did not want to move to Win 7, so went to Linux and have had no major issues.

[tofro]

QPC2 works fine with WINE and Linux, absolutely recommended.

Tobias

[vanpeebles]

Thankfully it came with an OEM install of win 7 so I can get back on with the game. I will give a linux setup a go at some point though Phew!