Skip to main content

Change in the testing environment

Following the successful test of WPS Office to stand in the shoes of Excel, the test environment needs to change.

The virtual Linux machine Gimli is hosted on Windows host Legolas via Virtual Box.  Legolas now needs to share data with the Virtual Box, so as to reduce the workload on synchronisation (grive and google-drive-ocamlfuse), thus stepping closer to a "big-bang" migration from Windows to Linux (where parallel co-existence of the two platforms wouldn't happen).

This is nearly a transitional phase.  It enables normal operations in Windows to the extent that apps in the Linux environment are either not available, or there is no time to find them to meet functional requirements.

This change took place ~30 days ago, and so far, is proving very successful as a test environment.  The Linux Mint test environment is handling more and more functionality with each month, successfully manipulating "live" data with no prejudice to the Windows environment or the data that the Windows environment handles.

It'll take a few more months for the test environment to prove that it can meet all functional objectives with no input from Windows, perhaps even longer to blog about them.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Scanning & OCRring to PDF: Simple Scan, gimagereader and gscan2pdf v NAPS2 for Windows

The project is to build a Linux Mint machine to have the identical functionality and ergonomics as the existing Windows 10 machine. This stage relates to scanning paper documents to PDF and digitising the scanned text via optical character recognition. Environment & required functionality The scan-and-OCR function needs to run on the following machines: The Linux Mint Xfce 18.3 laptop " Gandalf "; A Linux Mint Xfce 18.3 virtual machine " Gimli "; The Windows 10 laptop " Legolas ". In any modern office - whether at home or at work - some transactional documents and documents from public authorities still arrive by snail-mail. This requires the ability to scan all documents, optionally with the digitisation of scanned text (typically via optical character recognition). The hardware is an old HP OfficeJet Pro 276dw, connected to the LAN instead of directly to a workstation. Alternatives There are two strategies: To use the software pr

An attempt at full-disk encryption: Vera Crypt

The project is to build a Linux Mint machine to have the identical functionality and ergonomics as the existing Windows 10 machine. This stage relates to testing full-disk encryption using VeraCrypt . Environment & required functionality Full-disk encryption needs to run on the following machines: The Linux Mint Xfce 18.3 laptop " Gandalf "; The Windows 10 laptop " Legolas ". The objective requirement is to protect user data from the physical theft of the physical machine, to provide an additional line of defence against data loss. This is probably more important for Windows than for Linux Mint.   Even so, in both cases, the operating system is likely to log activity which can reveal personal data and user (meta)data. Full-disk encryption does not mitigate against Microsoft’s sinister telemetry functionality, for which the main solutions seem to be: Either to use tools whose developers are constantly on the prowl, hunting for t

The Big Bang: Microsoft Windows goes for good, positive adaptations required

On 27Mar2021, Linux Mint ate Microsoft Windows 10 on Legolas. Three months on, I conclude beyond any doubt that wiping out Windows was the best decision I ever made. The second best decision I ever made was to test Linux Mint in Virtual Box five years ago. The third best decision I ever made was to take ownership of the learning curve that migrating in Windows really entails. A quick reminder: what’s Microsoft Windows like nowadays? I still need to use Windows at work. I cannot easily describe how painful it now is to use Windows. So I’ll try to describe it difficultly. My work machine is a powerful beast, but it exhibits constant latency. For a keyboard-orientated power user, this means that some keystrokes go walkabouts when other services on the Windows machine go to nuclear war with each other, scrambling to feed their narcissistic self-importance for besieged system resources wholly at the user’s expense. Something on Windows tends to clear the keyboard buffer randomly, resulting