LX desks and Windows

[notwhoyouthink]

Which desks around these days are there which don't run windows? My school has recently bought the Strand PresetPalette and we have lost count of the number of times it has crashed. Aside from the Zero88 desks and the Pearl 2008, which desks don't run windows? The Avo Pearl Expert and Tiger and the Diamond range do, as do all of Strand's new desks, Martin Maxxyz and the ETC/Avab Congo. Why is the industry suddenly switching to much flakier software?

 

Notwhoyouthink

[ben.suffolk]

The ChamSys MagicQ consoles are not windows based.

 

Regards

 

Ben

[CPlater1]

Im sure there will be desks around that don't run Windows, but remember, it is the embedded version being used, so it doesn't have most of the rubbish that is on a laptop for example. I'm guessing some of the main reasons for running Windows are the cost factor, integrating hard drives/cd drives etc, the support, and also things such as the networking. I know this could be done with different OSes, but Windows is still the leading OS in terms of copies sold per year.

[blackbird]

Windows itself is not inherently flakey (well, not as flakey as it has a reputation for). It is the variable hardware and software that lead to this reputation! Most lighting desks seem to be running XP Embedded nowadays, which in itself adds an extra level of stability, since you don't have to install all those windows services you don't need.

 

I would presume that if Palletes are crashing then that is bad software writing, there really shouldn't be anything else going on in windows to cause it to crash.

 

The reasoning behind a windows platform is usually user familiarity, speed of development, standard hardware support and more attractive GUIs.

[mclarenamerican]

I think the Vista desks use a linux system and I've not heard many complaints thought these are mostly moving light desks. Speaking as someone who has used a congo from launch, the issues that we've had with it hardly had anything to do with windows itself. It's almost always the software loaded to it. I'm not trying to badmouth anyone at all because I now would be quite comfortable using the congo anywhere for almost any job. It's just that common sence saying that the first few units off the assembly line - no matter what product it is - will have teething problems.

 

Also - you have to consider the fact that dos, no mater how stable it was, is gone and developers have to turn to something that will be forward compatible in regards to networking and software engineering.

[mac.calder]

grandMA uses xvWorks.

 

My (personal) opinion is that it is one of the best "new gen" desks around (even though it is one of the oldest new gen deks), and it is extreamly stable, although I have not played with ETC's latest offerings, so it may be an unfair statement.

 

Vista runs ontop of Fedora (a linux distro), however I find that it is not a very stable desk - however that is more due to the software than the underlying operating systems.

[niclights]

As said, it is not the OS that is particularly unstable, but things that might be installed. Embedded XP is surprisingly reliable.

 

Avo Tiger does not run on XP. It is identical hardware and software to 2008 board and thus runs with its own OS.

 

I have not had a single fault caused by Windows on the Expert in a years worth of shows. I would consider it reliable. Additionally, specific to Expert and D4, you can now run 'showsafe' parallel systems for extra security in the unlikely event of OS or related hardware failure.

 

The problems are much more specific to the software itself, which with all these advanced boards is now incredibly complex.

[Ynot]

Also - you have to consider the fact that dos, no mater how stable it was, is gone and developers have to turn to something that will be forward compatible in regards to networking and software engineering.

Ahem...

DOS is gone, you say...?

I don't think so!

Whilst it may not be the OS of choice these days, it's still very much alive and in use in a wide range of applications!

I can't speak for Win Vista, but I can still open a DOS window on my XP machines and execute a variety of DOS commands as I need to.

:)

DOS will be around for many years to come, I'd bet - there may not be many programmers using it to design stuff from scratch, but you can't keep a good dog down! :)

[Madmac]

Embedded XP is a very stable operating system if used correctly with a stable application. Unfortunately XP allows a very low level of entry into embedded systems in both cost and experience. A desk top development system can be used to produce an application that has poor error recovery and hence stability. To produce a stable embedded XP system a lot of knowledge and experience is need which many companies don’t have. To configure you tick boxes as to what bits you want installed. One example is systems that use HORM (Hibernate Once Resume Many) to give a quick boot time. Without care a system is sold that is very critical on hardware and if a customer changes a faulty video card (for example) several years down the line thinking that the new one will be compatible is in for a surprise.

Embedded XP is going to be supported by Microsoft until 2015 (last I heard) which means in the last five years only very major bugs will be fixed. Currently there are a number of quite critical bugs that have been acknowledge by Microsoft over the last 3 years and they are still not fixed.

 

 

VxWorks (based on an operating system VRTX which had few problems and is believed to stand for VrtX now Works) is one of the most robust embedded operating systems around. It has been developed for over 25 years to be the favoured operating system in most industrial applications. The learning curve to use it is high and addition of new features is slow. This can be seen from the length of time it has taken for saving to USB sticks to be implemented on the grandMA line of consoles. Any application program written to take advantage of its protection and real time features will be very stable. The main downside to using VxWorks is the cost of a licence per unit shipped and the lack of software engineers with experience.

 

 

Linux covers a very wide range of possibilities from installing a popular distribution and running an application on top to writing an application that deals with all its own graphical interface requirements and installing only the minimum required system. Linux is not a popular choice as it requires a high level of software expertise to design and write applications for. To configure a system for fast booting and error recovery requires detailed knowledge of the low levels of the operating system. Many companies do not have the required experience and will not spend the funds to employ those that do.

 

Linux has the major advantage of being open software, if there is a bug the source code is available to correct it immediately. Linux will continue to evolve with no issue of support suddenly ending along with the advantage that there is no commercial pressure to release versions with known problems as occurs with Microsoft. The other advantage running Linux is that there is no cost in doing so. Any changes or improvements made to Linux are made public, that is the only requirement.

[AndrewR]

MSDOS is gone (as opposed to a Disk Operating System :) ) yes you can still access a command prompt... but try running some older programmes!

 

But before I dissapear waaaaay of topic.

 

Compulite Vector runs on both Windows and VX Works. The GUI on windows and the actually clever bits on that works thingy... it even has 2 CPU's (except on the lite)

 

And I do just want to echo peoples support for windows... Embedded XP and Congo software, not stable (and seemed to get worse as time went on). Regular XP and MagicQ, never a twitch. Despite there being god knows what installed on this laptop.

 

Although all credit to ETC, I had a go at crashing a Congo at plasa... That bug had been fixed, but they made a hurried note that the error message was wrong, and seemed rather peeved about that... (Its probably lots better now, but I haven't touched one for 6 months).

[James]

Also - you have to consider the fact that dos, no mater how stable it was, is gone and developers have to turn to something that will be forward compatible in regards to networking and software engineering.

Ahem...

DOS is gone, you say...?

I don't think so!

Whilst it may not be the OS of choice these days, it's still very much alive and in use in a wide range of applications!

I can't speak for Win Vista, but I can still open a DOS window on my XP machines and execute a variety of DOS commands as I need to.

:)

DOS will be around for many years to come, I'd bet - there may not be many programmers using it to design stuff from scratch, but you can't keep a good dog down! :)

 

Tony

 

That isn't DOS

The command line in 32 bit windows has a lot of common commands with DOS however it is not an operating system and requires windows in order to run.

 

On another note you are correct that DOS is not dead, Whilst Microsoft stopped marketing MS-DOS in 2001 and IBM hasn't done anything with PCDOS since 1998, Novelle sold their DR DOS to Caldera who have released it as the open source OpenDOS

 

James

[Nick512]

Firstly I'm not a PC guy at all.. Im Very Much A mac guy.. that said..

 

I have been using and testing the Avo D4's since they first existed (I toured serial number 003 for nearly a year..) They are indeed using a Windows XP embedded platform, I had serious doubts about the stability of the system when it was first presented to me..

 

Now 5 years on and nearing 1000 shows on the board I can honestly say I can count the number of crashes on one hand.. The d4 software and operating system are rock solid. never would I have dreamed that windows could be so stable.. but as its so locked down Avo have managed to create a very solid reliable product.. and believe me I have been in some pretty strange environments with it.. from the Arctic circle to a dust storm in Austin Texas where I was pulling dead locusts out of the insides for about 3 weeks afterwards!!!

 

so all I'm really trying to say is don't dismiss a product just because its windows based.. the number one cause of any desk crash remains pilot error!!!

[agermich]

Compulite Vector runs on both Windows and VX Works. The GUI on windows and the actually clever bits on that works thingy... it even has 2 CPU's

 

I've been using a Vector Blue for the past couple of months and have had a couple of crashes during programming (never during playback). Only the software has crashed but it always restarts automatically without any DMX dropout or loosing your possition in the show. My thoughts are that I've had lockups/crashes on non-windows based desks before (once or twice on a sirius and quite a few times on a Strand 300) so in the end the OS doesnt really make a difference - it's all down to trusting the actuall software and hardware thats running the show.

[merlin24]

Vista runs ontop of Fedora (a linux distro), however I find that it is not a very stable desk - however that is more due to the software than the underlying operating systems.

 

Would you mind explaining why you think Jands Vista is unstable....? If there is one thing it is it IS stable.

[mac.calder]

Vista runs ontop of Fedora (a linux distro), however I find that it is not a very stable desk - however that is more due to the software than the underlying operating systems.

 

Would you mind explaining why you think Jands Vista is unstable....? If there is one thing it is it IS stable.

 

I don't THINK it is unstable. I know it is. I worked with one almost every day for a year. It crashed at least twice a month - usually whilst plotting. The desk was upgraded to the latest software a month after release as "stable" - so it was not bleeding edge - and fresh show files were created after every major upgrade to ensure that it was not a bad show file.

 

Maybe it was a hardware issue in the earlier models (of which this is one), but the deks is certainly far from stable.