I had been using Ubuntu Mate 16.04. Both Real Speed and GPSResults worked fine under Wine, and GPSARPro worked with Java.

Trouble is Ubuntu Mate is due to end of supported life, so I upgraded to Ubuntu Mate18.04. This totally killed GPSARPro, it wouldn't start. GPSResults wouldn't calculate alpha 500s or 20secs, (although it did calculate alpha 250s) and RealSpeed crashed trying to do hours.
Fangy happened to mention he liked LinuxMint, so checked that out. Mint 19 was the same as Ubuntu 18.04, so no help.
But LinuxMint 18.03 is similar to Ubuntu 16.04, it's supported to 2021 and every thing works just fine!

Maybe Wine would need to be updated for Ubuntu Mate18.04? Did you try the latest development version of Wine?

I'm also curious why it matters if the OS is still support - security updates? I've been sticking to outdated Mac OS versions for many years, after Apple starting making changes that were often questionable, and sometimes just plain bad. But since they also adopted the policy to stop supporting older versions as soon as a new version come out, and stuff in older versions started to break for various reasons, I finally had to relent. Can't say I'm overly impressed with 5 years of "improvements".

I run Ubuntu Xenial 16.04, kernell updates are automatic, only use GPSResults, never had issues.

Me too.. Run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, only use GPSARPro, never had issues.
As Decrepit I have tried Ubuntu 18.04 but GPSARPro would not run due some strange error regarding the network on GPSARPro startup..
On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS GPSARPro runs without any issues, just like it did on the earlier Ubuntu versions (12.xx, 14.xx)..

Apologies to Decrepit for this little hijack. Has anyone figured out how to configure a virtual com port for the Locosys Utility? At present, I have a Windows VM so that I can download my GW-52, but it would be great if I could configure the com port to run natively on Linux. The GW-52 Utility is working fine under Wine, it's only the com port issue that I can't figure out. ( Linux Mint 19 Tara Xfce )

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boardsurfr said..
Maybe Wine would need to be updated for Ubuntu Mate18.04? Did you try the latest development version of Wine?

I'm also curious why it matters if the OS is still support - security updates? I've been sticking to outdated Mac OS versions for many years, after Apple starting making changes that were often questionable, and sometimes just plain bad. But since they also adopted the policy to stop supporting older versions as soon as a new version come out, and stuff in older versions started to break for various reasons, I finally had to relent. Can't say I'm overly impressed with 5 years of "improvements".

Yep, I think it's the latest version of wine that's the problem.
And yes security is the issue with support.
Unfortunately this oldie prefers the Mate desktop and unlike Straight Ubuntu 16.04 which I think has 5 years support it only has about 3.

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ClausF said..
Me too.. Run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, only use GPSARPro, never had issues.
As Decrepit I have tried Ubuntu 18.04 but GPSARPro would not run due some strange error regarding the network on GPSARPro startup..
On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS GPSARPro runs without any issues, just like it did on the earlier Ubuntu versions (12.xx, 14.xx)..

The GPSARPro problem is due to the way the MAC address of the ethernet card is prefixed.
The old way is "HWaddr", the new way is "ether". It seems this is how the "machine number" is generated by the registration process. I've alerted Yann to the problem, so hopefully he'll have it sorted by the time we have to upgrade again.

Fangy, I just found this.

www.onetransistor.eu/2015/12/wine-serial-port-linux.html

Just started reading it, but it seems this guy has got it to work. I'll give it a go later.

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decrepit said..
The GPSARPro problem is due to the way the MAC address of the ethernet card is prefixed.
The old way is "HWaddr", the new way is "ether". It seems this is how the "machine number" is generated by the registration process. I've alerted Yann to the problem, so hopefully he'll have it sorted by the time we have to upgrade again.

I have had a bit of mixed luck with getting fixes from Yann, I don't think he has time to work on GPSAR very often.

It's quite possible that he gets the hardware address by issuing a shell command like "ifconfig". You should be able to verify that from the command line. If so, there's a reasonably easy workaround - rename "ifconfig", and replace it with a little sh or bash script that replaces the offending word with the expected one. That might break other stuff, so the safest way to do so would be in a launch script that undoes the renaming when you quit GPSAR.

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boardsurfr said..
>>>>

It's quite possible that he gets the hardware address by issuing a shell command like "ifconfig". You should be able to verify that from the command line. If so, there's a reasonably easy workaround - rename "ifconfig", and replace it with a little sh or bash script that replaces the offending word with the expected one. That might break other stuff, so the safest way to do so would be in a launch script that undoes the renaming when you quit GPSAR.

Thanks Peter, I'll try to remember that in 2 years time, if things haven't changed.
For the moment I'm happy with mint 18.03, I may end up liking it more than Ubuntu.

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decrepit said..
Fangy, I just found this.

www.onetransistor.eu/2015/12/wine-serial-port-linux.html

Just started reading it, but it seems this guy has got it to work. I'll give it a go later.

Nice one Mike, I will give it a crack tonight too.

Well I've got Com1 appearing in the window but I get an open com port error.
So I did, -----
decrep@decreps-mint ~ $ dmesg | grep tty
[ 0.000000] console [tty0] enabled
[11479.785787] cdc_acm 1-1.1.1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[11687.210394] cdc_acm 1-1.1.1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[12337.249322] cdc_acm 1-1.1.1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[12511.253159] cdc_acm 1-1.1.1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
-------
So I changed the, ----
ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com1
instruction to
ln -s /dev/ttyACM0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com1
instead
And it now appears to be working, but the log is empty, so I'll have to take it for a walk to confirm.

Back soon.
--------------------------
Yep downloaded my walk, and cleared the log and top speeds.
Thanks Ross for pushing me into this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I don't have to waste time booting into windows after every sail.

Fantastic Mike!! Good job, I will copy your set up and keep my fingers crossed

Just started the watch util and it's working for that as well.

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decrepit said..

ClausF said..
Me too.. Run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, only use GPSARPro, never had issues.
As Decrepit I have tried Ubuntu 18.04 but GPSARPro would not run due some strange error regarding the network on GPSARPro startup..
On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS GPSARPro runs without any issues, just like it did on the earlier Ubuntu versions (12.xx, 14.xx)..

The GPSARPro problem is due to the way the MAC address of the ethernet card is prefixed.
The old way is "HWaddr", the new way is "ether". It seems this is how the "machine number" is generated by the registration process. I've alerted Yann to the problem, so hopefully he'll have it sorted by the time we have to upgrade again.

Ok decrepit, thanks for info.
I couldn't figure out why this problem suddenly arose after an upgrade from 16.04->18.04, - I thought it could be due to a problem with a newer and perhaps incompatible java version in 18.04 so I obviously tried installing another, but without any luck.. Then I re-installed 16.04 LTS which is nice anyway..

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decrepit said..
Well I've got Com1 appearing in the window but I get an open com port error.
So I did, -----
decrep@decreps-mint ~ $ dmesg | grep tty
[ 0.000000] console [tty0] enabled
[11479.785787] cdc_acm 1-1.1.1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[11687.210394] cdc_acm 1-1.1.1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[12337.249322] cdc_acm 1-1.1.1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[12511.253159] cdc_acm 1-1.1.1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
-------
So I changed the, ----
ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com1
instruction to
ln -s /dev/ttyACM0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com1
instead
And it now appears to be working, but the log is empty, so I'll have to take it for a walk to confirm.

Back soon.
--------------------------
Yep downloaded my walk, and cleared the log and top speeds.
Thanks Ross for pushing me into this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I don't have to waste time booting into windows after every sail.

After installing Wine 3.0.4 in Linux Mint the process is even easier.
cd ~/.wine/dosdevices
ls -l

Which in my case gave me a list of approx 40 tty devices. The newest version of Wine automatically creates all the links between com port and tty for you :-))

Scroll down to find the ACM0 device, which in my case is Com port 33.

Open GW-52, connect on port 33 and Bingo!
No more Windows boots for me either. Happy Days.

GpsResults is not calculating some speeds due to missing fonts...
Don't know what the issue is, but just apt the default MS fonts and you're fine.

Thanks Raymond, how on Earth did you work that out??? It's a very weird cause.

and sometimes just plain bad. But since they also adopted the policy to stop supporting older versions as

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raymondw said..
GpsResults is not calculating some speeds due to missing fonts...
Don't know what the issue is, but just apt the default MS fonts and you're fine.

Sorry, didn't work Raymond, I downloaded, "msttcorefonts." with synaptic, with no luck, so I copied them into .wine/drive-c/windows/fonts. Still no luck