It’s easier for an experienced user like me too 
.
My work uses linux on all the development laptops (because of ROS) and we all use Ubuntu (because of ROS). It works well. We always stay with the stable releases. I also like to wait a little while for the kinks to work out. I am on 18.04, but if I was installing today, I would choose 20.04.
I use the Ubuntu LTS releases at work, so that I don’t have to keep updating them constantly. The applicable saying is … Well, maybe not for public posting. But the idea is that a production machine shouldn’t be messed with too much.
At home I use Mint, because I like the window manager a little more, and there are some packages more readily available for stuff I do here. Well, and I use Windows, because there’s some stuff that is too much trouble on Linux, like playing Blu-Ray discs, so my TV machine is stuck with Windows. Day to day, I end up with Windows, though I hardly ever play games anymore. Still, stuff like Estlcam keeps coming up that’s annoying to run on Linux. If I like something enough to put in the effort, I’ll run it under Wine, or find some form of port.
(I’m re-reading the thread, because it’s about time to get Estlcam working for me.)
I installed Estlcam 11 32 bit on Ubuntu 12.04. The 64 bit version do not install on my laptop. So far it works well although I have just started using the LR 2.
Should be 20.04 not 12.04
Finally! I did a clean 20.04 Ubuntu install, and got wine and winetricks. Installed the all the d3d9 packages, since the package descriptions didn’t show anything. Got the dotnet40 and gdiplus packages as well, and installed all the fonts just to be sure. Got complaints regarding 32 vs 64 bit during package installs setups, and issues with sha checksums. The graphics drivers also had issues, but everything worked fine in the end. Thanks a lot for this thread!
Estlcam in wine, in ubuntu, on a macbook. 
!
It may seem shiny, but it’s older than it looks! 4gb ram, from 2008. Not supported by os x anymore. Barely within minimum specs, but I’m more relaxed with min specs in Linux terms, than in pc-gaming terms.
What is the playonlinux license you refer to earlier in this thread? Maybe that is old news?
I just installed Ubuntu 20.04 on my new laptop I got from work, too. This model was certified for Ubuntu 20.04 - so I thought it might be the way to go. So far it works great. Maybe I will try to install Estlcam there too, just to try it out.
Though I never have tried to install linux on a macbook. I am curious how difficult it will be.
Cool - it looks great ! 
There is some feature called playonlinux vault. It looked to me like it would copy my setup and share it with everyone. That is cool, but my estlcam license that I paid for is in my setup (somewhere, registry maybe? I don’t know windows) and I didn’t want it to pull that info into this vault and share it.
I don’t know if ironic is the right term but…
Macs run on a unix style operating system called Darwin
That’s why they were seen to be less flaky than windows…they’re actually linux 
When I’ve had to do command line work on a mac it’s basically identical to working in a debian (ubuntu) command line environment.
So Estlcam in wine, in ubuntu, on a mac is double linux!
Some computers have hardware that doesn’t have open source drivers. Therefore you have to check an option during installation to allow proprietary drivers. Ubuntu is super user friendly on this. For the common man it doesn’t make a big difference, but for the FOSS purists I could imagine it would be a downer. My old macbook needs proprietary drivers for the broadcom wifi and ideally for the NVIDIA gpu. I’m still sleeping good at night…
Man, all of that just to not use windows.
Broadcom and nvidia are pretty much the only trouble makers. There are open source versions that work ok. But nvidia proprietary drivers just work a whole lot better. Nvidia at least does put in the effort to develop and test the drivers in Linux. You’ll have to believe me when I tell you it has gotten so much better. I haven’t worried about drivers when installing Linux in probably 10 years. Before that, it was tricky.
100% worth it. You don’t realize how much crap you have to deal with in windows until you try it again after a few years of not using it at all.
I remember playing with linux many times over the years. My first go was with Red Hat in the late 90ies. Every time I’ve ended with giving it up, because of driver hassles. Things have certainly improved a lot!! I still struggle with understanding the file system, where everything “goes”, and what all the folders are for. I know the basics, but I always end up googling every little step of the way to get things done when being out of the box.
I think its not really linux but mostly BSD. It just happens that BSD and Linux are both POSIX conform systems that use the GNU tools. That is why they are very similar on the commandline level.
I have Estlcam11 ‘running’ fine on Ubuntu 20.04, except I cannot configure my CNC controller - an Arduino with a GRBL shield and subsequently connect to it.
When I click ‘Program Controller’ everything seems to be going fine but as soon as it hits 100% it decided it cannot open the port (not sure if it ever did)…
I have all correct mappings between COM & (in my case) tty/ACM0 and in dialout group etc in ubuntu.
Has anybody had this issue, and solved it?
I have not tried to connect the controller to estlcam in linux. I have only saved the gcode and ran it in other gcode senders.
I assume you are running it under wine?
Your error says COM33 - is that a typo?
What did you do to map the ttyACM0 to a COM port (and which port/location did you point it to?)
Slackware. In the 80’s. On floppies. With X-Windows. It would take nearly a week just to download the distro…
Yeah, am using the latest version of Wine.
COM33 not a typo - that is what ACM0 is mapped by default on my machine, found via ~/.wine/dosdevices/ (i thought it was a weirdly high number too!). That mapping disappears if I unplug the device so guess that is working ok and is the correct one.
Also have tried changing permissions sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyACM0, and also udev rules; and I can write to the device okay with Arduino IDE and PlatformIO (in VS code).
Will try with the 32bit version of Estlcam and perhaps another Arduino device to check not some glitch there
…then will give up and revert back to my crusty old winxp laptop 
(unless anyone has any bright ideas?!)
