hamamelis@ntlworld.com

I have written two scripts using PlayOnLinux which will install TMG9 and SecondSite (including TMGUtility) in separate wine bottles. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hamamelis/linux/index.htm. Please use these with care and check that they do what you wish. You will be able to use trial versions of the software for a period but purchase a licence to support these great programs. If you would like scripts written for any other related programs, I could have a go at this if you give me suggestions.

Yes, all versions of TMG from 7 onwards will install and run perfectly in Linux. I use LinuxMint13 which is based on Ubuntu. Look for the instructions here: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=25030 You will see a note that I added regarding TMG9 which installs in the same way as TMG8 by extracting an .msi file. To run the full version you must purchase a serial number from whollygenes just as you would in Windows. I have been using TMG7 natively in Linux wine for years and love TMG. I am sad that MS stopped supporting Visual FoxPro years ago and that this means there will not be a UTF-8 version unless TMG is completely rewritten, I think. It works perfectly in Linux once you get to grips with how to confgure wine which will appear very mysterious to start with! http://liliputing.com/2014/01/windows-xp-support-dies-in-april-no-more-security-updates.html There is an easier way which Linux purists, like me, like less, but which works very well. You can easily install your version of WinXp in VirtualBox in any Linux installation and run TMG just like windows in it. This is much easier than the above instructions for running TMG natively in Linux. As long as you get an activation code from Microsoft when you first install WinXP you can keep going as long as TMG supports WinXP. We hear that MS support for WinXP will cease in 2015 (http://liliputing.com/2014/01/windows-xp-support-dies-in-april-no-more-security-updates.html). However, running WinXP in an emulator such as VirtualBox which is free has many security features available and I do not think you need worry too much about not getting updates from MS. For example, you can take a snapshot of your virtual machine setup when you first install it and should WinXP become infected with a virus or innoperable for any reason, you just revert to the original shapshot and start from there unaffected. Backups of data are essential, because any changes to data in the virtual machine will be lost. TMG has a good backup system and if these are made daily and kept in a secure place, not on your computer, it is easy to restore these in seconds in TMG, so minimal data will get lost. There is one big advantage to running TMG in a virtual WinXP machine like this, compared to native linux. That is that all MS Windows companion products like John Cardinal's SecondSite, TMG, GenSmarts and many more will, in my experience, run perfectly and integrate with TMG just as you expect in native WinXP. Getting all these programs to run natively in Linux wine can be difficult and you need to know quite a lot about wine to solve some of the issues that arise. Futher, there are minimal or no issues getting TMG and these other programs to run just the way you like them with your usual look and feel. If you set up LinuxMint from a live DVD, you will have the option to install it alongside in another partition and be able to access all your data on the WinXP partition. Thus, you will be able to restore from a backup of TMG data so that you start where you left off on the native WinXP. However, read the documentation on how to do this. I take no responsibility for what might happen, because it used to be easy to set up Linux partitions in the early days of WinXP, I understand that there are more complex issues if you are using later versions such as Vista and 7/8. Keep backups of all your data. I have used Acronis True Image for backing up and restoring WinXP NTFS partitions over the years with minimal trouble. However, I have no experience their latest products which probably behave differently. I hope all this helps. All the best, Ian

I value your honesty about when it will be ready. I will buy 7.03 and upgrade as you say. I have been trying to enter the gift certificate code from the Message Centre in TMG to get 1/2 price UK edition for a friend before 31 Dec 08. I keep being told that it is only valid from an individual product page. I cannot see anywhere which allows me to enter this code for the UK edition. I see where it is entered for the US edition. I am happy with a download and do not need a CD. Can you help me before 31 Dec. Best wishes, Ian.

Mon 10 Nov 2008: Wholly Genes are onto this problem and Jim Byram has found the solution and this will be made available imminently with release 7.04. System: wine v1.1.7 (& earlier recent versions) & Crossover Office v7.1 with Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 Linux as of October 2008. I use both a PC and a Acer Travelmate 3004 laptop. I use the UK version of TMG. Where are we with TMG7.04? Just wondering. I'd like to buy a copy for Christmas for someone. Still thinking about buying this before 31 December when the half price offer ends. Ian.

Mon 10 Nov 2008: Wholly Genes are onto this problem and Jim Byram has found the solution and this will be made available imminently with release 7.04. System: wine v1.1.7 (& earlier recent versions) & Crossover Office v7.1 with Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 Linux as of October 2008. I use both a PC and a Acer Travelmate 3004 laptop. I use the UK version of TMG. Where are we with TMG7.04? Just wondering. I'd like to buy a copy for Christmas for someone. Still thinking about this. Ian.

Just to let other people know that I have received the file and Jim is trying to track down the problem.

The problem noted below has been corrected with TMG V 704 For further details of installing see http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?...TestingId=37240 ************* Note below only applies to versions of TMG before 7.04 ********************************** TMG 7.03 Works well under linux wine with one problem: backup. Mon 10 Nov 2008: Wholly Genes are onto this problem and Jim Byram has found the solution and this will be made available imminently with release 7.04. System: wine v1.1.7 (& earlier recent versions) & Crossover Office v7.1 with Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 Linux as of October 2008. I use both a PC and a Acer Travelmate 3004 laptop. I use the UK version of TMG. The instructions for installing TMG7 under wine can be found here: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?...TestingId=23660 Instructions for installing TMG7 under Crossover Office can be found here. Crossover is the commercial operation of wine and automatically installs new applications in separate instances of wine. http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/b...rum=1;msg=28168 If you do all this correctly then TMG runs faultlessly as far as I and others can see. However there is one mysterious problem with the generation of the .sqz file during backup. The backup appears to go fine but there are about 45 essential project files not copied to the backup. The same problem appears in CrossOver v7.1.0, the commercial version of wine. This problem did not occur with TMG 6. In fact, TMG6 will back up a TMG7 project perfectly with all the project appearing as they should be. So there is something about TMG7 which is different which is causing this problem Below are the details of what happens taken from the winehq website above. These were written by me. Along with Nathan N, I am a maintainer of TMG running under wine. I have copied these here and I would be grateful if any TMG/VFP specialists would have a look at this and see if they can fathom why these files are missing. This has been mentioned before in a post related to a slightly different issue and I think it merits being a thread of its own. ******************************************************************************** ********************************************* NOTE WELL: As yet, the Backup project does not function correctly under either Wine 1.1.7 or Crossover 7.02, TMG703 & Ubuntu 804 Hardy . When a Backup is performed all appears to go correctly and the .sqz file is created. Restore works correctly but I find that I get the message "Nothing to Restore". The Backup has backup all configurations but ignored the Project files. I see no warning to this effect. I wonder if there is a dll relating to zip that has to be altered. There is a workaround. All the Project files are in the directory UserData=C:\TMG7\UserData stated in Data_paths.txt. Solution 1: just back these up periodically. Solution 2: Change C:\TMG7\UserData to in, say, the home directory as UserData=z:/home/ian/TMG7Backups, or wherever seems best for you. This problem exists when TMG7 is installed for All User, or just for a single user, ian. The problem does not exist when using WinXP in Win4Lin or VirtualBox with the UserData kept on the home directory so it is not a program error and does not seem to be related to permissions. Every attempt to Backup any project files in TMG7 using Files>Backup with any configuration of project & backup paths results in a successful backup according to TMG. However. always the important 45 or so project files are missing. See below for a list of the files that should be there and what is missing. (This can be checked by opening the TMG7 .sqz backup file in Linux with the archiver and going down the archived directory tree to Projects/Sample. The important 45 or so files are missing. It just seems that the project files are not being found for some reason.) I have tried to mapping both the project source and destination files to the same drive letter "P:", with still the same result. Every time on Backup the project files are missing. I have tried everything I can think of. It appears to write all the files OK so I wonder if TMG cannot access the project files for some reason. Permissions seems unlikely as all the files in the project folder have the same permissions. It seems more likely to be a problem in VFPro. It is strange that this problem did not occur in TMG6. What is different in this part of TMG7, I wonder? Project files copied into Project/Backup.sqz when using Windows Emulator WinXP all .acc & .flp files SAMPLE_UK_A.CDX sample_uk_a.dbf sample_uk_a.fpt SAMPLE_UK_B.CDX SAMPLE_UK_B.DBF SAMPLE_UK_C.CDX SAMPLE_UK_C.DBF SAMPLE_UK_$.CDX Sample_UK_c.FPT SAMPLE_UK_$.DBF SAMPLE_UK_D.CDX Sample_UK_d.dbf Sample_UK_d.FPT SAMPLE_UK_DNA.CDX SAMPLE_UK_dna.dbf SAMPLE_UK_dna.FPT SAMPLE_UK_E.CDX sample_uk_e.dbf sample_uk_e.fpt SAMPLE_UK_F.CDX SAMPLE_UK_F.DBF Sample_UK_f.FPT SAMPLE_UK_G.CDX SAMPLE_UK_G.DBF Sample_UK_g.FPT SAMPLE_UK_i.CDX sample_uk_i.dbf sample_uk_i.fpt SAMPLE_UK_K.CDX Sample_UK_k.dbf SAMPLE_UK_L.CDX sample_uk_l.dbf sample_uk_l.fpt SAMPLE_UK_M.CDX sample_uk_m.dbf sample_uk_m.fpt SAMPLE_UK_N.CDX sample_uk_n.dbf SAMPLE_UK_ND.CDX Sample_UK_nd.dbf Sample_UK_nd.FPT sample_uk_n.fpt SAMPLE_UK_NPT.CDX Sample_UK_npt.dbf SAMPLE_UK_NPV.CDX SAMPLE_UK_NPV.DBF SAMPLE_UK_O.CDX sample_uk_o.dbf SAMPLE_UK_P.CDX SAMPLE_UK_P.DBF SAMPLE_UK_PD.CDX SAMPLE_UK_PD.DBF Sample_UK_pd.FPT Sample_UK_p.FPT SAMPLE_UK__.PJC SAMPLE_UK_PPT.CDX SAMPLE_UK_PPT.DBF SAMPLE_UK_PPV.CDX SAMPLE_UK_PPV.DBF SAMPLE_UK_R.CDX SAMPLE_UK_R.DBF Sample_UK_r.FPT SAMPLE_UK_S.CDX sample_uk_s.dbf sample_uk_s.fpt SAMPLE_UK_ST.CDX SAMPLE_UK_ST.DBF Sample_UK_st.FPT SAMPLE_UK_T.CDX sample_uk_t.dbf sample_uk_t.fpt SAMPLE_UK_U.CDX Sample_UK_u.dbf SAMPLE_UK_W.CDX SAMPLE_UK_W.DBF SAMPLE_UK_XD.CDX Sample_UK_xd.dbf Files copied into Project/Backup.sqz in wine & crossover All .acc & .flp files SAMPLE_UK_DNA.DBF, SAMPLE_UK_DNA.FPT, SAMPLE_UK_NPT.DBF, SAMPLE_UK_NPV.DBF, SAMPLE_UK_PPT.DBF, SAMPLE_UK_PPV.DBF About 45 project files are missing. Can anyone think of a reason for this? I have tried experimenting with altering settings for FoxFix5.dll to no avail. Thanks to Jim Byram I now know that "Foxsqz5.fll has nothing to do with backup. It is only used when importing very old non-ZIP TMG database backups (v3.5 or so) that were archived using the FoxPro SQZ function." 8 Nov 2008 The current situation which has been worked out with the willing help of Jim Byram of Wholly Genes, seems to be: Something has changed in Visual Fox Pro from version 7 (used in TMG6) to version 9 (used in TMG7). Under wine v1.1.7 and crossover office v 7.1, backup will not include project files. Also the backup.log which is referred to is not produced either. At the moment there is no solution to this because, I understand, the TMG script to run the backup is virtually identical in the two versions of TMG. The DynaZip dlls which are used in TMG7 and TMG6 to produce the .sqz backup file have not changed. TMG6 can be used to backup a TMG7 project and that appears to work OK. I find that this is the easiest way to backup TMG7 projects, even if it is a bit of a pain. However, check that this works for you before relying on it.

I found wine very daunting a couple of years ago and found the Crossover (the commercial wing: http://www.codeweavers.com/support/) was much easier for installing most applications. This was the case for TMG6. TMG7 Crossover is more complicated. This is because the installation of TMG7 has to be done emulating Win98 and VCForm has to run as Win3.1 and TMG itself as WinXP. I may have got the details a little muddled but it is all described on the winehq website. http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?...n&iId=10500 I also have a site describing these issues, but it requires simplification www.rhus.org.uk and follow the linux/tmg link. Both wine and crossover are both mature and much easier to use now and worth a look I would say.

I haven't tried Win4Lin, so would you have any opinion why one should choose this over vmware server, which is free, works with tmg7 and is compatible across multiple platforms? Edit: quote feature does not seem to like emails as names I have not really tried VMware so I don't know about it. I just know and like Win4LinPro and it is easy to use. I suppose I have been a devotee since its inception and I just like it. Perhaps I should try VMware as it has a great reputation for stability and so on. I think I have felt that it is not really Open Source. I think that VB is. For completeness, I have used the free qemu and find it works fine with WinXP & Win4LinPro. Just a word of caution about trying out the different emulators. You will find that each time you install WinXP you will need to activate it and adhere to any license limitations. That is one reason for sticking with one in which you have installed WinXP before. None of these limitations apply to wine so hence the importance of getting TMG7 to work fully with it. It seems to but with the backup problem mentioned before.

Vmware, works well for me. It does need a computer with a fair bit of speed and memory. The convenience of using Vmware is that it allows me to setup an environment just for maintaining my genealogy software and not having to worry that an install of another program or a virus etc will damage my setup. The version of Win XP has been customized to be as small as possible using LitePC's XPlite to stripe out what I don't need. I use Win4LinPro which is easy to use and trouble free with TMG7 SecondSite2 TMGUtility and so on as well as being cheap. http://win4lin.net/ I run it in Ubuntu 804. It is a bit slow but reliably accesses all the linux host files. You need a legal copy of WinXP of course. The latest version of Win4Lin version 5 has many enhancements that make it easy to use. I have tried using VirtualBox which comes free and can be installed from Ubuntu. I find that v1.6 & 2.0 is fine. VB is a splendid program but has so many user alterable parameters that I find it hard to use. Win4LinPro is easy by comparison and has a very simple way of backing files and has a snapshot mode which makes it more or less bullet proof from viruses and the like. I have used Parallels Workstation as well but find that its way of accessing Linux host files, for me, has limitations with TMG which make it hard to recommend. I hope this helps.

The writeup for TMG 7 under the link above says: I suggest if you have Windows XP Licence. Copy the following fonts to your wine font directory * wingding.ttf That's just it, I can't find the Wine Font Directory. What I thought was it won't let me put the font in there. It says it is a protected file and then when I try other ones that I have found on the internet using the command line screen it says those file folders don't exist. I guess I need someone to tell me the exact file path of where I need to put the wingding file. I do have an XP license. The fonts directory will be something like /home/yourname/.wine/drive_c/windows/fonts

Running TMG7 (or TMG5) with Linux Wine wine-1.0-rc5 My experience is that TMG7 runs apparently OK with wine-1.0-rc5. I suggest that you look at: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?...n&iId=10500 Also winetricks referred to above will install all the necessary fonts and so on except wingding.ttf. Just note that gdiplus.dll is required as well: see my note on the subject in above url. All the fonts should be installed in ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/fonts the .dll files will be found in ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32. I have run TMG6 under crossover for years and it appears to run with the wine installation described above. Let me know how you get on. Best wishes, Ian. Since the above was written some time ago one major caveat with TMG7 running under wine has emerged. Everything that I have tested runs perfectly with Ubuntu 804 and wine v1.1.5 if you follow the guidance at: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?...n&iId=10500 However, there is one thing which does not work that is the backup from the file menu. Here is my note from the above site: ********************************************************************** NOTE WELL: As yet, the Backup project does not function correctly under either Wine or Crossover. When a Backup is performed all appears to go correctly and the .sqz file is created. Restore works correctly but I find that I get the message "Nothing to Restore". The Backup has backup all configurations but ignored the Project files. I see no warning to this effect. I wonder if there is a dll relating to zip that has to be altered. There is a workaround. All the Project files are in the directory UserData=C:\TMG7\UserData stated in Data_paths.txt. Solution 1: just back these up periodically. Solution 2: Change C:\TMG7\UserData to in, say, the home directory as UserData=z:/home/ian/TMG7Backups, or wherever seems best for you. This problem exists when TMG7 is installed for All User, or just for a single user, ian. The problem does not exist when using WinXP in Win4Lin with the UserData kept on the home directory so it is not a program error and does not seem to be related to permissions. *********************************************************************** In case anyone from TMG or a user can work out what the problem might be here is a further note from that website giving exact details of the files that are not backed up.: *********************************************************************** Every attempt to Backup any project files in TMG7 using Files>Backup with any configuration of project & backup paths results in a successful backup according to TMG. However. always the important 45 or so project files are missing. See below for a list of the files that should be there and what is missing. (This can be checked by opening the TMG7 .sqz backup file in Linux with the archiver and going down the archived directory tree to Projects/Sample. The important 45 or so files are missing. It just seems that the project files are not being found for some reason.) When I try to "Select a project" which is in "My Documents" which is in fact on the .wine/drive_c/windows/profiles/ian/My Documents/The Master Genealogist v7/Projects/Sample I get the message "You are trying to open a project what is located in the Windows tree. For you to access this project, you need to copy or move this project to a folder located in either your user space or in common user space. However, it still seems to open it fine. I have tried to map this folder to say M":". Still the same result. Every time on Backup the project files are missing. I have tried everything I can think of. It writes all the files OK so I wonder if TMG cannot access the project files for some reason. Permissions possibly, or a problem in TMG7 itself. Project files copied into Project/Backup.sqz when using Windows Emulator WinXP all .acc & .flp files SAMPLE_UK_A.CDX sample_uk_a.dbf sample_uk_a.fpt SAMPLE_UK_B.CDX SAMPLE_UK_B.DBF SAMPLE_UK_C.CDX SAMPLE_UK_C.DBF SAMPLE_UK_$.CDX Sample_UK_c.FPT SAMPLE_UK_$.DBF SAMPLE_UK_D.CDX Sample_UK_d.dbf Sample_UK_d.FPT SAMPLE_UK_DNA.CDX SAMPLE_UK_dna.dbf SAMPLE_UK_dna.FPT SAMPLE_UK_E.CDX sample_uk_e.dbf sample_uk_e.fpt SAMPLE_UK_F.CDX SAMPLE_UK_F.DBF Sample_UK_f.FPT SAMPLE_UK_G.CDX SAMPLE_UK_G.DBF Sample_UK_g.FPT SAMPLE_UK_i.CDX sample_uk_i.dbf sample_uk_i.fpt SAMPLE_UK_K.CDX Sample_UK_k.dbf SAMPLE_UK_L.CDX sample_uk_l.dbf sample_uk_l.fpt SAMPLE_UK_M.CDX sample_uk_m.dbf sample_uk_m.fpt SAMPLE_UK_N.CDX sample_uk_n.dbf SAMPLE_UK_ND.CDX Sample_UK_nd.dbf Sample_UK_nd.FPT sample_uk_n.fpt SAMPLE_UK_NPT.CDX Sample_UK_npt.dbf SAMPLE_UK_NPV.CDX SAMPLE_UK_NPV.DBF SAMPLE_UK_O.CDX sample_uk_o.dbf SAMPLE_UK_P.CDX SAMPLE_UK_P.DBF SAMPLE_UK_PD.CDX SAMPLE_UK_PD.DBF Sample_UK_pd.FPT Sample_UK_p.FPT SAMPLE_UK__.PJC SAMPLE_UK_PPT.CDX SAMPLE_UK_PPT.DBF SAMPLE_UK_PPV.CDX SAMPLE_UK_PPV.DBF SAMPLE_UK_R.CDX SAMPLE_UK_R.DBF Sample_UK_r.FPT SAMPLE_UK_S.CDX sample_uk_s.dbf sample_uk_s.fpt SAMPLE_UK_ST.CDX SAMPLE_UK_ST.DBF Sample_UK_st.FPT SAMPLE_UK_T.CDX sample_uk_t.dbf sample_uk_t.fpt SAMPLE_UK_U.CDX Sample_UK_u.dbf SAMPLE_UK_W.CDX SAMPLE_UK_W.DBF SAMPLE_UK_XD.CDX Sample_UK_xd.dbf Files copied into Project/Backup.sqz in wine & crossover All .acc & .flp files SAMPLE_UK_DNA.DBF, SAMPLE_UK_DNA.FPT, SAMPLE_UK_NPT.DBF, SAMPLE_UK_NPV.DBF, SAMPLE_UK_PPT.DBF, SAMPLE_UK_PPV.DBF About 45 project files are missing. Can anyone think of a reason for this?

Seeing a post on running TMG on WinVista, I searched various Forums for how to run TMG in Linux and found nothing. I've been running TMG 6.12 for about a year in Ubuntu Linux (Dapper now Feisty), using CrossoverOffice 6.2 with few, if any problems. The same applies to TMGUtility, SecondSite and GenSmarts. I have set up a web page on how this was done with much help from John Layt and John Cardinal. I explain how CrossoverOffice and Win4LinPro can be used and the limitations of these and other software. I should point out this it is necessary to possess legal copies of all the genealogy software mentioned. Since it is all very reasonably priced that should not be a problem and, of course, Linux is free and it comes with a full suite of free office software, firewalls, etc. Look at my web page at: http://rhus.org.uk/ & follow Linux Link or to http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hamamelis/lin....crossover1.htm I look forward to hearing how you get on with this and would encourage you to try other programs under Linux. Best of luck, Ian.

Thanks for your kind comments, Joan. I have linux running on an Acer Travelmate 3004 laptop which weighs 1.9kg, so I have no need to anything else - I carry my entire office with me every where I go. I can't quite imagine using something as small as a Gedstar for TMG. I would imagine that TMG7 will be easier to run on wine than v6. Later versions of programs like Dreamweaver, Photoshop and the genealogy software we mentioned seem to be better behaved than they used to be. I expect everyone is aware of the economic potential of writing cross platform applications. I think TMG6 uses an earlier version of Visual Fox Pro which has been superseded. Ian.

TMG6 runs perfectly well with linux. However, you do need to know how to set it up. It will run in the emulators Wine4LinPro or ParallelsWorkstation. However, I prefer to run it natively using wine. I have explained in detail why and how to do this on my website at www.rhus.org.uk. Follow the link Linux. (Put very briefly: Importing and checking external images does not work on the emulators but does with wine.) I have not succeeded in getting TMG to run with any version of wine (latest 0.9.43). However, as explained how, it will run with CrossoverOffice v6.1 & v6.2. All the other common utilities like TMGUtility, SecondSite2 and GenSmarts run better under wine than CrossoverOffice. I wonder if TMG version 7 will be easier to run using wine in Linux? So far as of 21 Jan 2008 the 30 day trial V7 will not run on either Crossover or wine. However, things are brighter than before: 1. It appears to install. 2. TMG7 will start up and looks normal but is unable to access the VFP files. Quite a few bits of the program do work, so I think it is a matter of time to find which dlls are required to fill in the missing links. I hope this helps, let me know how you get on. Best wishes, Ian.