Calibre 2.0 Crashing at start up

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by chaley

Have you forgotten that we are taking about windows XP? And no, that is not an invitation to start yet another long discussion about why people should upgrade or switch to a Linux desktop.

[volpo]

This is really gonna stink when the 'experimental' ends up being out of range of 1.48 or 2.0.

I guess I'll stick with 2.0 for now. I can live without support but cannot live without eating (cannot afford a new PC at this time).

Too bad, it is a really nice program.

[Howlingwolf]

Originally Posted by chaley

Have you forgotten that we are taking about windows XP? And no, that is not an invitation to start yet another long discussion about why people should upgrade or switch to a Linux desktop.

heh.

I suppose we don't really need this thread to descend into chaos the way the other one did...

Originally Posted by chaley

If the binaries refuse to install on xp then this solution won't work. My understanding is that they refuse to run, not that they refuse to install.

The changelog does say installing or running but according to Kovid in the post linked above it's a single line of code which prevents it from running.


My main issue is that I have three machines, two of which are dual boot Windows/Linux and only one of which I have regular access to (mine of course) so running from source may not be a viable option.

It's certainly something I'll have to look into but once again it's finding the time...

[JWPearson]

It is totally unreasonable to drop the ability to install or update Calibre under Windows XP. There are hundreds of thousands of XP users that are not goin g to upgrade Windows from XP because of having to do a total install of every application on the new Windows.

XP support from Microsoft may have ended but XP is still a very good OS and will continue to be used into the future.

The Calibre team should figure out why the new version fails and fix the problem rather than abandon many thousands of loyal users that have stayed with Calibre all these years.

[Katsunami]

The usage rate of XP is dropping fast now. There are manufacturers that don't even make XP drivers for their new hardware anymore. That will be the final nail in XP's coffin, finally, after 13 years.

MS doesn't support it anymore, so hardware manufacturers will drop support as well. QT5 basically doesn't seem to care about XP anymore, so even if Kovid would like to keep Calibre running on it, he probably can't. Sticking to QT4 forever, with the only reason being to support an ancient OS is madness.

BTW... I've not seen an XP desktop in active use for two years now, except at some of our government departments, who seem to be taken completely by surprise regarding XP's EOL... Which was announced in 2010, extended in 2011, announced again in 2013, and finally enforced.

Seeing the Windows 7 usage on the rise, still, with Windows 8.x basically being Vista 2 but much worse even, we could see 7's support being extended from 2020 to 2023-ish...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Howlingwolf

Undisputed by who?

Everyone who has used WIndows XP and Windows 7. Windows 7 is faster and the 64-bit version is actually supported. What does Windows XP have that's better then Windows 7? The answer is nothing.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by JWPearson

It is totally unreasonable to drop the ability to install or update Calibre under Windows XP. There are hundreds of thousands of XP users that are not goin g to upgrade Windows from XP because of having to do a total install of every application on the new Windows.

XP support from Microsoft may have ended but XP is still a very good OS and will continue to be used into the future.

The Calibre team should figure out why the new version fails and fix the problem rather than abandon many thousands of loyal users that have stayed with Calibre all these years.

They HAVE: QT5

QT5 has moved on past what XP provides.
QT5 is needed to fix other problems that QT4 caused.

Kovid (rightly) decided not to limit Calibre to ancient OS limits.

It hurts. I have 4 XP machines. One is already out of the running because its AMD has no SSE2. The others have $$$ of software/hardware that does not transition/license movable to W7+

W7 is already years old . Not sure it make sense to just bump to that this late. The pain will just happen sooner.

W8 requires 2 more features that a P4 does not have (PAE, NX), that assumes the P4 model you have has SSE2.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by volpo

This is really gonna stink when the 'experimental' ends up being out of range of 1.48 or 2.0.

I guess I'll stick with 2.0 for now. I can live without support but cannot live without eating (cannot afford a new PC at this time).

Too bad, it is a really nice program.

You could just setup an install from source, fix the XP block and run that way.

[BetterRed]

Change occurs when the cost of doing the same is greater than the cost of doing the change - assuming you've got the dosh to cover the cost.

BR

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Originally Posted by JWPearson

It is totally unreasonable to drop the ability to install or update Calibre under Windows XP.

I agree with the first part but not the second. Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP. You can't even get security updates anymore and I'm not even talking about new security updates but even the old stuff is no longer available. If Microsoft no longer supports their own platform than you can't expect new developers to also support it. That said, there should be a legacy version of Calibre available for users of XP that they can use that might not have all the latest features (new readers or reader firmware might not be supported for example). That said, it really is time to move on from Windows XP people.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Seeing the Windows 7 usage on the rise, still, with Windows 8.x basically being Vista 2 but much worse even, we could see 7's support being extended from 2020 to 2023-ish...

I am sitting here now using a computer that has Windows 8.1 installed. The thought of being stuck with a very limited desktop and Metro was not a pleasing thought. But then after installing Classic Start Menu, Windows 8.1 went from being not all that useful to being very useful. It gives the desktop back and we also get to use metro for those times when there is a Windows 8 app that we want to run. So really, if you have the hardware, it's best to go with Win 8.1. But, the one thing you will need is your processor to support the NX instruction in order to be able to install Win 8.1 64-bit.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by JWPearson

It is totally unreasonable to drop the ability to install or update Calibre under Windows XP. There are hundreds of thousands of XP users that are not goin g to upgrade Windows from XP because of having to do a total install of every application on the new Windows.

XP support from Microsoft may have ended but XP is still a very good OS and will continue to be used into the future.

The Calibre team should figure out why the new version fails and fix the problem rather than abandon many thousands of loyal users that have stayed with Calibre all these years.

The thing is, the Calibre team cannot fix the problems. The problems exist in Qt5 and Qt5 fixes issues existing in Qt4. Is Qt5 perfect? No. But it's better then Qt4. There comes a time when software has to move on and Kovid has chosen to move to Qt5 because it solves problems that Qt4 has. I'm also betting once things are a bit more stable, support will be less of an issue.

Qt5 is unstable under too many installations of XP. Can you imagine the support nightmare?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Err, not true actually. Kobo updated firmwares will undoubtedly start needing updates to the device interface, which would require updating calibre. Still possible by patching the source (by hand) even for 1.48, and I believe there was just an update (to go with the H2O) which requires enabling the experimental-support-unsupported-firmware option but works just fine.

The new device is more of a concern than the firmware updates. There haven't been many changes recently in the firmware that affected the driver. But, a new device with a different device id needs a change. I can think of a way to handle this, but I'll wait until someone with the device has problems before doing anything.

[BetterRed]

Hmmm - Sigil 0.7.4 uses Qt 5.1.0, calibre 2.x uses Qt 5.3.1

Does Sigil 0.7.4 work on XP - theducks would probably know.

If Sigil does work on XP, then 'twould be interesting to know what happened 'twixt Qt5.1.0 and Qt5.3.1

BR

[volpo]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You could just setup an install from source, fix the XP block and run that way.

No, I do not have the skill nor the time to acquire it.