GoldMine® and Linux

Document #551, Running Goldmine on Linux

Covers All Versions

The information in this document is provided as-is and is not supported by the FrontRange Solutions GoldMine Technical Support team. The FrontRange Solutions GoldMine Technical Support team does not support the use of operating systems other than the current Windows family of operating systems from Microsoft. This document is provided for informational purposes and the Technical Support team cannot provide or offer any further information on the topics in this document.

FrontRange Solutions Inc. recognizes that many organizations are using or considering Linux based solutions. This document has been prepared to answer questions about integration with the GoldMine product family and the available options.

It is highly advisable that the individual following this document have an excellent working knowledge of Linux. It is highly recommended that the assistance of individual knowledgeable with Linux be obtained and/or complete a thorough review of the documentation accompanying the various Linux packages before attempting any configuration or implementation.

The X Windows systems allows for various different configurations capable of executing GoldMine applications.

Developed as an alternative to the Microsoft Windows platform, one of the goals of this project is to provide a platform capable of executing Microsoft Windows applications within the X Windows system. WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is available free of charge at http://www.winehq.com

Please note that WINE is under constant development and it’s capabilities change and/or improve often. Nevertheless, testing has shown that WINE is capable of running GoldMine with minimal loss of functionality.

Thin-client technology has been rapidly adopted by many organizations and continues to grow. Citrix MetaFrame is especially useful for Linux desktops, as there is a native Linux port of the client software for use in X Windows. As a matter of fact, a few of the more widely known distributions of Linux now include the client software package as an option.

Because MetaFrame works in conjunction with NT Terminal Server technology, it is possible to run GoldMine applications via the Linux MetaFrame client.

In addition, Citrix also offers a Java based version of the MetaFrame client. Java based applications can be executed within any Java enabled environment. In turn, this Java environment allows you to execute Microsoft Windows based applications. Netscape for Linux will allow the execution of the Java client within X Windows, as will other virtual machines that can be found at http://www.blackdown.org.

Further information on Citrix products can be found at http://www.citrix.com.

VMware is a revolutionary technology that does away with the notion of emulation. Instead, VMware creates a "virtual machine" that executes on top of the Linux operating system. Within this virtual machine, one could install a secondary operating system, such as Windows 9x or Windows NT. The end result would be an X Windows session capable of executing the full-blown Windows operating system.

Due to the fact that emulation is non-existent, one could run just about any application that would typically run on a Windows based system, including GoldMine products. Additional information on VMware can be found at http://www.vmware.com.

A similar package to VMware, Win4Lin also allows one to execute the Windows operating system layered on top of an X Windows session. In turn, many different types of Windows applications can be run within the X Windows environment through Win4Lin. Information about Win4Lin is available at http://www.netraverse.com.

DOSEMU is a popular DOS emulator package for Linux. It exhibits great stability and can be used to run older versions of GoldMine products quite well. GoldMine for DOS runs nearly perfect in such an environment. The DOS emulator also allows the ability to install Windows 3.1 as though it were being installed on top of a regular DOS installation. This would allow one to run GoldMine for Windows on a Linux system.

DOSEMU is free of charge and available at http://www.dosemu.org.
Note that most Linux distributions come with DOSEMU bundled in and pre-configured.

One of the most widely touted benefits of using Linux is the quality of back end services it can provide. From file server to SQL technology, GoldMine products can take advantage of various options.

SAMBA is an Open Source technology that allows UNIX based systems to share drives across a network using a protocol that can be understood by MS Windows systems.

A Linux machine that has been properly configured as a SAMBA file server can be used to serve GoldMine data quite efficiently. Internal testing has shown that it can handle databases ranging from 100 records to 100,000 records quite nicely. Databases of sizes larger than 100,000 records were not tested, thus feedback is not available.

Information relating to SAMBA and how to obtain it free of charge is available at http://www.samba.org.

Please note that most popular distributions of Linux come with a pre-configured SAMBA package, making it quite easy to setup a Linux based file server.

A GoldMine end user has also contributed a document containing instructions on how to use a SAMBA Linux server in conjunction with GoldMine. It can be found at: http://www.goldmine.com/download/index.cfm?fa=supp_user

There are numerous RDBM engines that can be used on a Linux system. Some of the better-known servers are Informix, Interbase, Sybase, Oracle and MySQL. Re-hosting to Interbase and Sybase has been successful on multiple occasions. The results that were observed were quite positive as they showed GoldMine performing quite well under such configurations. In addition to the successful tests experienced first hand, reports of successful and effective re-hosts to Informix and MySQL have also been reported.

A variety of these RDBM engines are available free of charge, including the drivers for the Windows clients, as is the case of MySQL. In addition, in the case of Sybase, there are third party vendors that provide ODBC drivers and can be purchased if the original Sybase drivers are not available.

Information on the various servers can be found at different locations, including: http://www.mysql.com, http://www.redhat.com, http://www.caldera.com, http://www.oracle.com, and http://www.informix.com,

There are various other back end solutions that Linux can provide that are not specific to data management or serving. For example, many distributions have the Apache web server bundled in. Apache is a very popular and powerful open source package. Recent surveys have shown that Apache powers over half of the web sites on the Internet.

An Apache web server can be used in conjunction with the pop3 e-mail and Perl capabilities of the Linux server and in turn take advantage of GoldMine’s web import functionality. Information on Apache can be found at http://www.apache.org

There is an extensive amount of Linux applications that can be found at various sites on the Internet. It is likely that there may be a package out there that provides a solution for your specific needs. Some sites that may be of interest to explore include the following: http://www.freshmeat.net, http://www.linuxberg.com, and http://www.linuxapps.com.
 

Copyright (c) 2002 FrontRange Solutions Inc.

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