blankev wrote on Friday, February 14, 2014:
I almost pressed the LINK… when I wanted to click LIKE… (FB and SF difference) it is as Windows and Linux… the same but just a bit different… full of headaches.
First there was Windows, then there was Linux, and they both looked alike, now they have grown and they not only not look alike, but they also behave differently on different commands. They are almost human.
penguin8r wrote on Friday, February 14, 2014:
I will concede that for a physician who is tech savvy, and functioning in a small office/single provider environment, taking the simplest path and running on Windows is probably acceptable.
We function in an environment where it’s common to have anywhere from 5-20 providers and all their support staff using the system simultaneously from multiple locations, while continuously handling a barrage of never ending support functions like lab orders/results, live HL7 interfaces, a constant stream of incoming scanned documents, and multiple active fax modems.
Linux handles all of these things, 24/7/365, without breaking a sweat or requiring constant maintenance as Windows does.
fsgl wrote on Friday, February 14, 2014:
For OpenEMR to be widely accepted by the medical community, ideally it should be coupled with an operating system that is easy to use and stable. Windows is user friendly but crashes if video DVD’s are ripped.
Linux is stable but not user friendly, once a person gets beyond the basic setup.
Pimm, Jack and I are outliers in the sense that we are receptive to Linux. The typical physician, especially the old guys, would take one look at a command line and say, “No way, Jose!”. One of our GP’s retired to Cape Cod refusing to deal with EHR’s. Large practices with financial means would choose proprietary EHR’s over open source software, therefore they are not part of the discussion.
Penguin8R, your heart is in the right place if you bemoan the fact that Windows has to be babied. It does provide a perverse incentive, if you charge by the hour. Should children be heading off for university, it may not be so terrible after all.
blankev wrote on Friday, February 14, 2014:
Windows makes you a slave of their OS. You have to buy and after a couple of weeks they say you better change to a newer version. Than after a couple of years the support for a good system will stop and everybody will become nervous and feel the need to buy a new different Windows OS that will be replaced ASAP. and support for the almost perfect version will be stopped.
Thumbs up for the free OS and other software!
cmswest wrote on Friday, February 14, 2014:
if you happen to have an older computer i hope you don’t mind working with .isos, building from source, using make, depmod and scouring forums for the right how-tos…
i don’t really but catch myself muttering indelicacies when things bonk, windows kind of takes the pain away for the average user but makes you pay
anyways, got linux mint up and running, now on to practice upgrading openemr to the latest version
jackfruit501 wrote on Friday, February 14, 2014:
If OpenEMR is packaged to rpm in fedora or deb in Ubuntu/LinuxMint and be accepted to the respective repository then installation and setup would not be a pain to use. With yumex or synaptic the whole process of installation/setup can be completed without the intimidating commandline. It has been done with freemedforms emr (though not web based).
fsgl wrote on Saturday, February 15, 2014:
From the perspective of the IT professional, Windows is high maintenance. But from the vantage point of the DIY amateur, a few words should be said in Windows’ defense.
One learns to avoid those things that send Windows over the edge, like watching the videos on YouTube and not converting the .flv files.
The only time that I paid for Windows, out-of-pocket, was in 2012 when I purchased a Windows 7 laptop for a relative and Windows 8 had just been unveiled. As a promotion, Microsoft offered free copies of Windows 8 for newly purchased Windows 7 machines. One can’t complain about a tab of $2 for the sales tax. This senior citizen never had the impulse to dash out and purchase the latest version of Windows because that is not a personality trait and given the 2 duds, Vista and Windows 8, there is no reason to do so.
In 2009 the attempt to install OpenEMR was well neigh impossible. Brady rendered a great service to this community with his XAMPP-OpenEMR packages. Had I been faced with installing OpenEMR with Ubuntu, it would have been a show-stopper. Work is required in learning to use OpenEMR, but the heavy lift of learning to use the terminal would have killed the DIY project in its cradle. OpenEMR and Windows 7 have played together well for 1 1/2 years on the laptop and hopefully will continue to do the same until Microsoft ends support for Windows 7. There is a raw partition of 500 gb waiting for Ubunu or Linux Mint when that happens.
The only time Windows users have problems with OpenEMR installation is when they fail to follow Brady’s instructions. The bulk of installation questions are from non-Windows users.
With dual-boot I will be able to apply, in good faith, for a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, on behalf of the community, for MU3 money.
Jack (in Malaysia),
Linux Mint seems to be a crowd-pleaser.
Thanks for the tip about Yumex/Synaptic.
Learning to use the command line is like eating vegetables. It’s good for a person and besides, it builds character. Finally I will be able to understand what you Linux folks are posting when you sudo this or sudo that.
bradymiller wrote on Saturday, February 15, 2014:
Hi,
Note that Dr. Sam Bowen released the first XAMPP-OpenEMR package.
I am now mostly converted to Mint 16 cinnamon (both as primary desktop and for openemr development). Toughest thing I had to do was start to change over from Mozy backup service to Crashplan backup service. Will take about 18 days to get all 200GB backed up in the cloud and it will be much cheaper than Mozy also.
Main issue I am having is that my prior laptop, which was a heatsink anyways (a first generation quad core laptop) will go above 100C (and freeze/shutdown) when I try to use virtual box or anything that uses lots of cpu cycles. I am hoping that it will clear up after I clean out the fans/vents on laptop and update bios; will keep fingers crossed.
-brady
OpenEMR
sunsetsystems wrote on Saturday, February 15, 2014:
Interesting thread, covers a lot of territory. 
Brady, doesn’t Crashplan have a deal where they’ll send you a drive for the initial backup and then you mail it back to them?
I avoid using virtual machines these days; depending on what you’re trying to do, other solutions are often better. E.g. for multiple Linux instances on one machine, VLC is very efficient.
Yep, dust and failed fans can be killers of older machines. But sometimes, like people, they just wear out for no good reason.
fsgl wrote on Sunday, February 16, 2014:
Such modesty is straight out of Lake Wobegone.
Refreshing to see it in the young.
fsgl wrote on Sunday, February 16, 2014:
Ubuntu users, anxious to file their U.S. tax returns but not with Windows, should consider installing Wine from the Software Center.
TaxAct is the better value, costing about half of Turbotax and safer to use in Ubuntu. See the Silver rating and comments.
If money is no object, see this workaround for doing the returns online. If there is an adrenaline rush reading this description, hats off to you. I’m installing Wine for Notepad++, not TurboTax.
bradymiller wrote on Tuesday, February 18, 2014:
Hi,
The Crashplan is a bit costly ($125) to get the backup seeded (ie. mail in a hard drive with the files), so will wait the 20 days (with a couple intermittent backups to a usb drive in the interim).
At this point am now fully converted to Linux Mint (I ended up ditching the old laptop that was basically melting and installed it on my main laptop; I bought a cheap laptop for windows stuff which at this point is only used for a specific deprecated vmware application to monitor a appliance farm). I attached a screenshot of the Mint view that shows the multiple desktop view.
-brady
OpenEMR
blankev wrote on Tuesday, February 18, 2014:
IN your screen shot I see an OpenEMR appliance and an OpenMER local. Do these two have a system of synchronization for the Database? Or do they use the same Database…
bradymiller wrote on Tuesday, February 18, 2014:
Hi Pimm,
They are completely separate development environments; creating databases and new instances and testing code are very lightweight with git, so can pretty much work from either one. The OpenEMR appliance is what I was using when using windows, so brought it over to ease the transition (surprisingly, OpenEMR runs much faster from the development environment on the appliance than the native one).
-brady
OpenEMR
blankev wrote on Saturday, February 22, 2014:
I installed Mint-Petra. I read Mint is heavily dependent on Ubuntu progress and development and has main parts taken from Ubuntu.
After installation…: I now have Mint, Windows7 and Ubuntu twice due to a wrong reinstall.
Question: Without any damage done?, can I uninstall the Ubuntu OS with the original uninstall disk? Or what should I do to free some more harddisk space. (I never was dependent of any Ubuntu software and won’t miss what I saved in Ubuntu, only the effort to learn Ubuntu is lost for Ubuntu.
cmswest wrote on Saturday, February 22, 2014:
blankev wrote on Saturday, February 22, 2014:
I just did a check of the laptop and in both directories I still have some Giga Bytes left. I remember the days that I had a harddisk of 240Mbyte… and had to drink a cup of coffee with the family. Now I need the time to read manuals, look videos and hear the remarks of why the Network is so slow…
Sofar I did not yet get the command of “Get rid op Ubuntu as a separate partition on the harddisk”, I will do some more reading and in due time follow the advise and if needed do the repartitioning of whatever is needed. gParted is a great piece of software I did use in the past. Tnx for the reminder.
fsgl wrote on Sunday, February 23, 2014:
Assuming that you want to shrink C-drive to provide more room for Linux Mint; Windows 7 has a built-in tool, Disk Management, which can also be used to delete the logical partition Ubuntu occupies and assuming C-drive is first, Mint is second and Ubuntu is third:
For Linux neophytes who have not yet mastered the command line, working in Windows provides extra comfort because repartitioning is a daunting task for the amateur.
It’s a good idea to have a system image of Windows 7 before starting. A system image can be created with the built-in backup tool described here or by using Paragon which is freeware. Paragon can also be used for managing a partition, as noted in Full Features.
fsgl wrote on Sunday, February 23, 2014:
For users still pondering which Linux version to add, this is a discussion of Linux Mint choices and Mint versus Ubuntu.
fsgl wrote on Sunday, February 23, 2014:
Another consideration for dual-boot in a laptop is the fact that overheating in a tight, confined space can cause the hard disk drive to fail. Fortunately with the newer laptops, the SMART system warns the user to backup before actual failure.
If the user is running out of room, this may be a good time to replace the hard disk drive. The service manual must be consulted before the attempt. Because literally there is no room for error, it’s mandatory to check the connecters, SATA vs. IDE, before purchase. On a Windows 7 machine, it’s quite likely to be SATA, but visual inspection is strongly advisable.
Paul Thurrott offers a nice guide on formatting the new drive. C-drive can be kept the same or resized. The unformatted partition is reserved for Linux.
My laptop with the production copy of OpenEMR had the 301 advisory which prompted all these machinations with operating software transition. I chose to purchase the new hard disk drive from Newegg because the quality of the drives are better. Amazon Marketplace offered hard disk drives for the desktop but the manufacture date was 2007. I wished to invest a minimal sum for the desktop, therefore new drives which sat unsold were not a concern.
Toshiba 1 tb for $59.99, no tax nor shipping fee (see restrictions), is good value. My Samsung 750 gb was $50 from Newegg.