Okay, I've been running DP successfully on a Mac Mini the last couple weeks. I have it running in two different VMWare Fusion virtual machines: Linux and Windows XP.
1. Regarding the Linux virtual machine, I find Kubuntu the most compatible because every time it loads it picks the correct host printer. Other linux distributions were not so friendly in this regard. DP is running under dosemu in Kubuntu, booting MSDOS when it does that. Printing can be done without redirecting it. Dosemu understands attempts to print to LPT1 are to be sent to the default USB printer, so no need to struggle with this under Linux. Under Windows, that's a different story. 2. Regarding the Windows XP virtual machine, DP runs long reports (like Aging Accounts) faster in this virtual machine than in the Kubuntu virtual machine. Printing, however, requires use of DPSpool. I was able to get "net use" redirection of LPT1 to work once and only once in that virtual machine. Never could again. So I find I need DPSpool for this, and it works fine. The caveat here for both virtual machines is this. Do not run DP in a shared folder (shared between host OS and guest OS). If you do, you'll find Disk Full or Can't Read STR errors. Just make a folder in the guest OS virtual machine that holds your DP files. This folder can even be on a ext4 partition under the Linux OS, or an NTFS partition under the Windows NTFS guest OS. It need not be on a FAT partition. As long as sharing is enabled between host OS and guest OS, you can simply copy and paste entire folders between them as needed. Overall, running DP under Linux with dosemu installed is a better experience. You don't have the LPT1 problems when all you have is an USB printer, and you don't get those choppy lookups that require you to hold down the Shift key to complete them. I also tried Parallels, but found it frequently lost sharing between my Linux guest OS and my Mac host OS. This never happened under VMWare Fusion, so I bought Fusion and uninstalled Parallels. _______________________________________________ Dataperf mailing list [email protected] http://lists.dataperfect.nl/mailman/listinfo/dataperf
