Products > Test Equipment

Open source lxi-tools v2.0 released

<< < (8/22) > >>

RoGeorge:
Congrats!   :-+
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/18/open-source-lxi-tools-free-us-from-vendor-bloat/

electrodacus:
Just found this and wanted to install as I expect a DSA815 and have a lot of tests to do.
Unfortunately I'm on the very old Linux Mint 17.1 and do not want to upgrade this year as there are to many things that I need so upgrading will be time consuming.
Then I checked what Snap Store as it is new to me and I do not like the idea seems almost like a closed source tool (guess I'm getting old :) ).
Need to find some other alternative or just do the scans manually and save the csv to USB stick for now.

lundmar:

--- Quote from: electrodacus on March 14, 2022, 04:27:43 am ---Just found this and wanted to install as I expect a DSA815 and have a lot of tests to do.
Unfortunately I'm on the very old Linux Mint 17.1 and do not want to upgrade this year as there are to many things that I need so upgrading will be time consuming.
Then I checked what Snap Store as it is new to me and I do not like the idea seems almost like a closed source tool (guess I'm getting old :) ).
Need to find some other alternative or just do the scans manually and save the csv to USB stick for now.

--- End quote ---

Yes, DSA815 should work. It is on the list of tested instruments.

Regarding availability of lxi-tools. I'm afraid you can't have it both ways. You can't run an old distribution and have new software be available via the distributions package repositories.

The next best thing is to use snap or flatpak which are both open source and allows software maintainers to distribute their latest software in self contained environments, even on older distributions.

Alternatively, you could try find a distribution which ships the latest versions of lxi-tools and install that in a VM with bridged network adapter.

I would just go with snap if it is available on your old Mint version - it is by far the easiest way and it is actually open source (GPL). Nothing to fear there.

electrodacus:

--- Quote from: lundmar on March 14, 2022, 02:11:47 pm ---Yes, DSA815 should work. It is on the list of tested instruments.

Regarding availability of lxi-tools. I'm afraid you can't have it both ways. You can't run an old distribution and have new software be available via the distributions package repositories.

The next best thing is to use snap or flatpak which are both open source and allows software maintainers to distribute their latest software in self contained environments, even on older distributions.

Alternatively, you could try find a distribution which ships the latest versions of lxi-tools and install that in a VM with bridged network adapter.

I would just go with snap if it is available on your old Mint version - it is by far the easiest way and it is actually open source (GPL). Nothing to fear there.

--- End quote ---

Thanks for the replay. You make a lot of good points.
I will have been willing to use a old version of lxi-tools if it was available for my distro as I do not need the graphical interface just the most basic command line.
I dislike the proprietary nature of snap (based on the super amount of research I done on the subject).
I was not aware lxi-tools was available as a flatpak (I will make a search after).
VM is also a solution but currently Windows is the only OS I run in a VM once a year to do my taxes.
Mint developers seems to agree with my view on snap and so it is not included in the recent Mint releases.
This is the article that I read yesterday when I made that original comment https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-mint-dumps-ubuntu-snap/

lundmar:

--- Quote from: electrodacus on March 14, 2022, 05:03:05 pm ---I will have been willing to use a old version of lxi-tools if it was available for my distro as I do not need the graphical interface just the most basic command line.
I dislike the proprietary nature of snap (based on the super amount of research I done on the subject).
I was not aware lxi-tools was available as a flatpak (I will make a search after).
VM is also a solution but currently Windows is the only OS I run in a VM once a year to do my taxes.
Mint developers seems to agree with my view on snap and so it is not included in the recent Mint releases.
This is the article that I read yesterday when I made that original comment https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-mint-dumps-ubuntu-snap/

--- End quote ---

There is an experimental flatpak here https://github.com/lxi-tools/lxi-tools.flatpak but you will have to build and maintain it yourself because I have decided not to maintain a flatpak because flatpak is only designed for distributing single binary GUI applications and not command line tools, meaning I can't distribute lxi-tools fully featured via flatpak. Also, distributing stuff via flatpak is very slow because it has to go through reviews etc.

This is in contrast to snap which supports distributing multiple binaries of any type and it allows software maintainers to literally distribute new releases within seconds. Also, having made both a flatpak and a snap for lxi-tools, I find that snap is technically much better designed and easier to use than flatpak.

Sure, Canonical made some unfortunate political decisions regarding back end store support but I think those will be sorted out in the future if they want snap to become a success. Personally I'm more focused on the technical side of things and I find snap the best technical choice.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod