BigOven

Hey there - I am interested in building a recipe computer for my kitchen, using a small-form factor motherboard and maybe a CF card for the storage/boot drive.  It would have a touch-screen, and the whole unit would be mounted in the cabinet door (with plastic over it to protect the screen).

 

Only, I'm planning on running Linux to reduce costs.  Big Oven seems to be the most practical recipe program available, but it's Windows only =(  Will there ever be a Linux verion?  Or am I destined to buy another copy of Windows for a little single-use computer?

We'll never say never, but to set your expectations, at present a Linux version is still pretty unlikely.  Over the long run, we're much more likely to expose the power of BigOven.com to a set of web services that Linux (and other clients) can consume, however.

Thanks for the quick reply!  I'm sure I'll find some way to get windows for cheap - I was really diggin' the idea of the recipe computer, but adding another $100 for a bloated OS for a single-use computer seemed unreasonable.  At this point, I guess it's necessary though.  Thanks for your time!

If it is going to be a single use machine rather than buying a new operating system check with some of your friends who may have upgraded to xp or vista and you may be able to get their old 98 version cd cheap. 

Rick:

If it is going to be a single use machine rather than buying a new operating system check with some of your friends who may have upgraded to xp or vista and you may be able to get their old 98 version cd cheap. 

 

Which would expose him to an unsupported OS, and wouldn't solve the issue of bloat on a singlular-use machine.  

 

I second the vote for a Linux app.  I LOVED me some BigOven, but my Windows machine died.  The company I bought it from did not supply me with authentification keys, which I never really thought about until aforementioned machine death.  Now that I need those keys, this company is no longer to be found.  I had no choice but to install a Linux distro (I can't afford Windows right now), so no BigOven for me.  

 

However,  on the upside, at least I can post recipes on the site, and easily find them by searching for recipes I've posted.

 Just found the forum and FYI Big Oven does run in linux, perfectly. I just installed it on my Ubunto 8.04 distro.

Here's what you need to do. 

You must have wine installed.  I'm using ver 1.1. (I tried this on an earlier version of wine and it did not run.)

Next download a little script called winetricks from www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks  There is a help file also available.

run winetricks  from where you downloaded it. ./sh winetricks should work. or better install it by typeing in a terminal

 chmod +x winetricks

(and then)

sudo mv winetricks /usr/local/bin

Now you can just type winetricks and it will pop up a nice gui. You need to click on and install MDACS 25.

Don't download the file from Microsoft and try to install it in wine yourself, it won't work. You need winetricks

 Now install Big Oven as a wine application.  If your wine installation does not have gecko web engine installed you will get a popup asking if you want to install it.  Click yes.  (Big Oven does not seem to like the version of IE Explorer in the wine package)

 Click on the Big Oven icon and have fun!

I used Big OVen quite a bit under my old XP machine and for some reason it's running a lot quicker under wine in Linux than it did in XP.

Hope this helps some other linux users who want to use your fine program.

 Windspinner

 

 

 

 

 You are terrific to stop by the forum and help out other users with this detailed information. 

 Thanks, windspinner!