Picoscope 6 can be made to run with linux/vista/virtualbox

If like me you decline to run any Microsoft OS's anymore this may help out:

The Sun Virtualbox system for Linux
with Vista Home SP1 installed as a client OS seems to run
Picoscope 6 just fine.

I can't comment on sample accuracy as I've only used
it for simple pulse trains so far. Technically I can't see any reason why there should be any problems though.
As far as I can tell everything works fine.

If you have an external hard drive this is ideal to back up a smallish Linux system with PartedMagic including virtualbox/vista with picoscope to just reload quickly as you need it. (One way of doing it anyway)

PartedMagic will clone the entire drive (using Clonezilla) including MBR and the sectors between it and the first data sector without wasting space on unused areas)
This reduces the pain of having to use Vista greatly.
Make sure you get a recent PartedMagic with the grub2 bug fixed though.

Or you can just shut Vista down and close virtualbox!

Virtualbox is a free download (unless you want a pro version)
from virtualbox.org (about 43MB)
The learning curve for virtualBox lasts about 10 minutes. Its VERY easy to install and use. It seems pretty bug free too.

But do beware of Linux - developers have started to quietly install so called "cloud" software that transfers your data to their servers as a background task. Connecting a dev machine to the internet is a bad move anyway - but this may make your hair stand on end... forewarned as they say. (Why isn't that illegal?)

Anyway - I've only had my picoscope a couple of days so do test things out before using this on any critical systems.

The kit I use is:

Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop
Intel Duo T8300 2.3Ghz
4GB Ram USB2 ports
Bristling with other interfaces

Picoscope 4224 Kit Software 6.3.43
Linux Mint-8 (Cleaner Ubuntu derivative)
Current Virtualbox
Vista SP1 as a client in Virtualbox

I hope the info is useful to someone.

john

Thanks for the input John, It will be interesting to see what response there is.
PeterF.

Thanks - that's useful to know.

I assume that like XP, Vista needs to be registered online before use. Did you find any weirdness with this or were you simply allowed to register another installation?
I may have a need to make another XP installation (regrettable, I know ) and would much rather do it in a virtual machine.
At the moment I'm just idly wondering what hoops I might be expected to jump through, assuming it's allowed at all. (don't you just love closed source?)

johnw wrote:But do beware of Linux - developers have started to quietly install so called "cloud" software that transfers your data to their servers as a background task.

Hmm. Certainly not "Linux" generally - but perhaps your Mint-8 distribution specifically?

The hoops I use...
I plan to just re-install my original Vista disk into Virtualbox
any time I need to. It doesn't take long as this is all I use it for.
I doubt even the 30 day timeout thing should affect it though - but we'll see.
You could have multiple installations if you do other things. Virtualbox allows that.
I havn't (and refuse) to "register" things online. Enforced internet connection is the prime reason I no longer allow any microsoft operating systems here.

The cloud issue relates to all Ububtu derivatives and the others are following suit AFAIK. Hence it becomes a "linux" issue. They just aren't talking about it. "Ooops it's done ... too late - take it or leave it." I expect will be the response in future. Unfortunately open source is a global dissaster.

Personally I'd like to see criminal prosecutions for such behavour
but anything internet related seems to be above all laws.

Hope thats useful.

The same can be done for PS2205 with OpenSuSE 11.3, VirtualBox 4 and Windows XP. I have spent many hours using the PicoScope application this way and I can confirm that this way of using PicoScope is not a strange toy but ready for doing serious work.

Some details of installation:
OpenSuSE 11.3 is the one and only operating system residing on my hard disk. VirtualBox 4 is installed as an ordinary RPM-package on this Linux machine. VirtualBox 4 has been available since December 2010 and it supports USB 2 devices like my PicoScope 2205. The older VirtualBox 3 (last summer) did not support USB 2 devices, so you have to use VirtualBox 4 as delivered by Oracle/Sun. Windows XP SP3 was installed on a Virtual Machine with no problems at all. Notice that you have to install the "VirtualBox 4.0 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack" for USB 2 support and switch on ("filter") support for your device in the VM's USB menu. My installation was on a slow PC with an Intel Atom CPU and PicoScope still worked (no blue-screen ever seen).

The only nuisance I have observed is this: After using PicoScope inside the VM, I always shut down the VM and also reboot the PC. After the reboot, I can use the PS2205 device with Linux again. The reboot is necessary because sometimes use of PS2205 from the VM and from Linux directly disturbed the PS2205 so that it wouldn't work any more. Apart from this minor nuisance, the whole installation is so stable that I can recommend it for daily professional use.