[Colchester] continued ESP8266 and MQTT - Windows 10 or Linux

[Martyn]

I'm an electrician by trade and employ several electricians as sub 
contractors.
Home automation is definitely an area I am keen to pursue but getting a 
foothold or reliable information is proving difficult to almost 
impossible without forking out ££££'s to some so called training company.


On 01/09/2019 20:08, Wayland Sothcott via Colchester wrote:
>
>
> On 01/09/2019 19:45, Martyn via Colchester wrote:
>> Your plans going forward sound interesting and as much as I love 
>> playing with Linux my main OS has been W10 due to needing (a stable) 
>> Quickbooks for the business.
>  Martyn,
>
> There are a lot of frustrations when using Linux for business 
> depending on the business.
> In some businesses, anything Internet based all works perfectly in Linux.
> However the legacy of needing Windows based programs causes problems. 
> I found WINE handles most things written for Windows except those 
> which directly interact with hardware like USB key burners. Most of MS 
> Office works fine in Linux WINE. MS Access is impossible to get to 
> work in Linux so I run Windows 7 inside a VirtualBox in Linux and 
> share the files over the network.
>
> I'm very happy in Linux having forced myself for a year. However 
> moving customers to Linux is much more challenging. Some of the 
> Windows software they use does not even work properly in Windows like 
> the accounts package SAGE.
>
> Windows 10 is so terrible it would be better to give up all Windows 
> programs than actually have it on a computer. Fortunately Windows 7 
> still works as does Windows XP.
>
> I don't know what your new area of business is but I would think that 
> home automation might be very popular. A lot of the current systems 
> are terrible in that to turn a light on it has to connect to 'The 
> Cloud' and ask it to put the light on for you. None of this is 
> necessary but it does involve having an actual 'Cloud' at home. That's 
> were we come in.
>
> Wayland.
>