Re: Running ECCO Pro in Linux

Thanks, Mark.
 I recently stumbled on Oracle VirtualBox, and it looks interesting (I can't recall where I found out about it). Your experience is heartening. I understand that this is similar to a "ramdisk" of yore: in other words, an entire environment that runs in memory. That might be good for me if not for the following:
 - I'm using mostly old hardware; each machine has a 4gb RAM limit. I don't have enough memory for this, I think.

 

 I have one box that can take 8, and presently has 6gb of RAM, but that machine is not presently set up. It's actually a "brute-force dual-boot" contraption, with Linux on one hard disk and Windows 7 on the other HD. I boot into one OS or the other OS at the BIOS stage, before boot-up. In other words, I have what's effectively two separate computers in a single cabinet, and can use one at a time. I avoid running it in Windows, mostly because I want nothing to do with Microsoft.

 

 Right now, I'm mostly playing with an old Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop that's running the latest version of Linux Mint (v19.1) with the most efficient xfce desktop.
 - I don't have an installable Windows source in any version.

 

 So far, ECCO Pro 4.01 is running nicely on this old Dell Inspiron under the latest version of the Wine Windows emulator. Frankly, I'm still surprised about this: after all the frustrations that I experienced in attempting to install Wine, well, it's a wonder to me that it actually works. And it's working in a civilized manner: I've experienced no nasty surprises. So, I want to emphasize this: ECCO is running reliably for me under the Wine emulator. I want to use ECCO within a Linux operating system under a Windows emulator or to use a modern replacement for ECCO.

 

 I'm planning on wiping this hard drive and reinstalling Linux properly (my present installation is wrong). So, I intend to take my ECCO work file back to the Windows XP machine where it used to reside, for continued use "for the duration" of the Linuix re-installation on this laptop. I'm confident that I'll be able to do this.

 

 I wish that I could report that installing Wine went smoothly, but it did not. I don't recall which of the many procedures that I attempted actually worked. I believe that the Wine people have fixed their own faulty routine now. This utility gives no indication or verification that lets the user know that the installation is successful nor if the program is actually running. Sure enough, there is a nest of Wine's directories on my system.

 

 I installed four "front end" programs that are supposed to humanize Wine. These are called: Play On Linux; Q4Wine; Vinyard, for Wine; and Winetricks. One of these may actually have worked for me, taking care of the installation. Or perhaps one of the scripts did the job. I just don't know.
 

 In my ECCO-under-Wine, I can cut-and-paste nicely between Linux applications and ECCO. I cannot access ECCO's help system. I have not tried ECCO's built-in, intricate, ability to synchronize copies on multiple computers. And I have not attempted to send any documents to the printer.