The Sinclair QL Forum

I wont bore you with how I got to this stage, suffice to say, my old and trusty Laptop has been given a dust-off as I found it while packing. Windows bloat-ware has kept every operation to a snails pace, even after a clean install, wiping and formatting the drive. I have in the past tried installing Linux as a look and see, and things always ran fast and smooth but the stumbling block was the wireless connection as Linux put a wrapper around the Windows driver for the particular hardware I have. Its a Medion Laptop, which I bought in Woolworths, yes Medion (who?) and Woolworths (who?).

Now in the past my experience with the Raspi and uQLx came to a grinding halt and thats a future project, so my experience is non-existent. Most of the Linux guides assume a working knowledge of Linux, which I don't have. Anyway after a quick search on the internet for the top ten Linux Distros for 2014 (I know all the lingo now woohoo), Lubuntu came up trumps as a light package especially for older laptops. Downloaded, installed and runs fine especially with my newly acquired and tiny USB WiFi dongle http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WIFI-150MBPS- ... 1023374826 it connects with no problem at all.

Great, Chrome installed (I don't like Firefox, but that's my preference) I thought, OK QL time, what can I install. SMSQmulator, it runs on JAVA and in Linux, downloaded, un-archived, read the instructions/readme, Yes it has been tested/ran on Lubuntu, great I thought. downloaded the correct JAVA package, followed the instructions on the JAVA website for installing.

So where I am now, is here.
Un-packed JAVA, unpacked SMSQmulator, double clicking on the SMSQmulator.JAR file just opens up another un-archive option with more folders and files, I don't think I am supposed to do that, but as a LINUX newbie/I know nothing and its all confusing, I am not sure what I am doing wrong or what to do next.

Is there a dummies guide to this process at all?

Anyone?

Lee,

probably the easiest one (without referring to a lot of desktop re-configuration):

Use an editor (like gedit) to write the following script Save it to a convenient place and make it executable from your file manager application.

A simple double click from the file manager on that script should get you going then.

If that doesn't work, probably some of your PATH needs some tweaking.

Tobias

As root run the command
Then you get the version of Java 7 integrated with your desktop, then just double clicking on .jar files works.

Almost always check for a package on your distro before downloading on linux.

General rule for linux is 98% of the software you want/need is available from the package manager directly. You don't download like you do in windows.

On Lubuntu there should be a GUI to the package manager, called Software Something probably.

Thanks T, are the <> significant?

Mr_Navigator wrote:Thanks T, are the <> significant?

Oops, no - were just intended to mark a placeholder.
replace <path to...> with the location where you put SMSQmulator, like "/home/navigator/Qmulator/" (without the quotes). The whole thing should then be the complete path to the .jar file.

Tobias

Mr_Navigator wrote:Thanks T, are the <> significant?

In coder terms <> means insert stuff here, you replace the comment and the <> marks.

XorA wrote:

Mr_Navigator wrote:Thanks T, are the <> significant?

In coder terms <> means insert stuff here, you replace the comment and the <> marks.

Thanks guys, the reason I asked is that I have tried both of your suggestions and none of it worked

I am trying the package manager now to see if that helps

Its called Synaptic Package Manager for your information

Well I tend to use Gnome or KDE as they are fully integrated, the desktop environment in Lubuntu is much rougher around the edges.

Oh and if you have installed openjdk-7-jre then java -jar SMSQmulator.jar on command line inside your unpacked zip file should always work.

You can then work backwards from this to work out what is going wrong with the script.