As some of you know EMT will run in Linux under Wine. The graphics is now on par with Windows, since I use my own smoothing routine. But the status bar is missing, there is not 64bit version, the configuration is awkward etc.
Every now and then, I make a new attempt to get a native version for Linux. But I struggle with the first steps. There is a command line version, but it lacks the connection to Maxima. I tried to get this to run, but encountered problems with pipes in Linux. This is surprising since much of the Linux way to do things is based on pipes. I need to read and write via a pipe to Maxima in a separate thread (asynchronously) but could not do it yet.
Then, of course, we need a GUI to display the notebooks and the graphics. Now, multi-OS graphical interfaces are not as easy as they claim to be. Moreover, I would have to implement some hacks I did in Windows like anaglyphs or anti-aliasing, not to mention Unicode support.
In short, if this ever is to happen, I need help. Maybe, it is not too important since there is Wine and most Linux users prefer to run a cloned Matlab. Moreover, there is the Mac world which to me is just as important.
A completely different approach would be based on Java. Since EMT is a C++ program the native interface would be needed. This is not nice but it is feasible. And it is a world where I feel at home. Java, on the other hand, was bashed all the time by Linux users, Mac CEOs, and the Microsoft corporation. It has been trampled upon so much that now you cannot run a Java program even on a platform which is completely written in Java (Android). Despite its remarkable sandbox model it has been marked as a security hazard, which it has never been. What a shame!
So, we are currently stuck with the Windows version, which is not the worst after all that could happen to EMT.
I run the old GTK Euler version of years ago in Linux. I prefer it to using Wine. I’ve used the pipes to communicate to a shell so that I can command things outside of Euler. I’ve created some string routines using the primitive character routines in Euler. But I’d love to see a more up to date Linux version of Euler Toolbox.
Yep, nobody seems to be interested in helping me with some basic question: I was unable to communicate with Maxima in EMT for Linux. So the current version I have is only without graphics and Maxima. Of course, the C compiler, the Python interface, or the LPSOLVE package also stop working. It is a lot of work and I won’t and can’t do it without knowledgeable assistance.