Linux: Convert to Gramps or run TMG virtually?

[Trillemus 0]

For several reasons I have decided to convert from Windows XP to Linux (Ubuntu). Allthough I have not been doing genealogy for the last 5 or 6 years, I have at lot og valuable data entered in TMG. I have purchased TMG7, but never used it; all my data is in the v.6 format.

 

If/whem I start my research again I will have to decide either converting/exporting mu data from TMG to Gramps or run TMG in a virtual machine on Linux (Ubuntu). Is TMG running smoothely like that?

 

Unfortunately there is not many advanced genealogy programs for the Linux platform. The only one I know of is Gramps, and that is what I will have to deal with(?).

 

I have been using many (but not all) advanced features in TMG and of course I want to get all possible data from TMG to Gramps, including witnesses etc. Is there another way than generating a GEDCOM file and which options must I use to get the most out of it? I am not experienced with Gramps yet and I don't know how good or bad Gramps' GEDCOM import works.

 

Any surgestions on alternatives to the transfer of data between the two programs?

[Helmut Leininger 0]

You may find tmg2gramps (http://www.cohsoft.com.au/tmg2gramps/) that transfers some data from TMG to gramps. It does not transfer everything, just what the author needed for his requirements. I tried it once from TMG V7 and did not succeed (but I did not try too hard).

 

The second point is if gramps meets your requirements. If you trust the description, it is quite powerful. Here is my personal experience (I tried because I was looking for UFT/Unicode support):

 

I tried to enter some basic data (individuals, families, some marriages, ...). No problem with the birth date of individuals. My probelms began when I tried to enter a marriage between two persons. I could easily create the marriage event, but I had difficulties to "connect" this event to the individuals. Gramps identifies everything by numbers which is ok (and every program has to do this), but the only way I have found to attach the event to a person was by its number.

The same for places. In TMG, if you enter a place information for an event etc., TMG looks if the same place exists already and uses it (or by optimizing thd database TMG will do it). Gramps always creates a new place unless enter its ID (number) in the event.

 

I did not succeed in creating something like the detail person view in TMG where you see an individuals "life", i.e. birth, marriages, children, death, other events. So I gave up after two or three days.

 

I also tried (just for interest) running TMG in wine, but besides the speed it has a lot of restrictions that do not work.

 

Probably, the best thing (if you want to stay with TMG) would be to run it in a virtual Windows Environment (such as VMware, Xen, ...).

 

However, I think you should try gramps first with some people (probably not more than 50) and events, sources, exhibits etc. to see if it meets your requirements and you can get familiar with its terminology and philosophy. This decision (Gramps does what you want and it does it in a way you are going to accept/get used to) is more important than how to import data. Importing data is "just" time consuming work. But if you cannot get used to gramps, the best import feature won't help you to have fun with it.

[Adam Brown 0]

I just changed to Ubuntu 9.10(64bit) using Wine(stable) and TMG seems to works great, follow the recommendations to get TMG going on the Wine website. The main issue is you cannot open more than 1 project at a time, but I never do that. Help does not work from TMG, but you can open the help file using a Linux program. Also overcomes the issue of some report output not working on a 64bit operating system, as Wine uses 32bit libraries.

 

You get all the advantages of Linux and TMG.

Edited February 16, 2010 by Adam Brown