All my PC’s for work and business have run windows 7 for years (Six machines). There is no way I will be installing windows 10 on any of them as their performace will be less than optimal and they work fine for what I need them for.
I have started using different flavours of linux on them over the past few months and I am very happy with it. I’ve mainly been using Linux Mint but also Ubuntu and all machines feel like they have a new lease of live. I still run windows 7 as dual boot for a few machines including for my use of TrainerRoad.
Is TrainerRoad available for Linux?
It is growing in popularity for desktops now that more “friendlier” versions are available like LinuxMint and I think their usage will increase, especially as windows 7 support comes to an end early in 2020.
I don’t want to stop using TR and I think creating a linux version should be straightforward, especially as lots has already been done for Android.
Windows 7 is 10 years old at this point, it makes no financial sense to continue to support it. If you don’t want to upgrade to Windows 10, that’s of course your prerogative, but you shouldn’t expect that companies invest resources into maintaining support for a very old OS.
And I don’t think a Linux version is in the cards either, I don’t see any business case for that. Nor is it that simple, Android ≠ desktop Linux. (Linux is, strictly speaking, just the kernel and the base OS. TrainerRoad on Android relies on Android APIs which are not included in desktop Linux distros.)
I haven’t run a linux machine in a couple of years, last I recall the only decent cycling software were Wattzap and Golden Cheetah. Golden Cheetah is certainly very powerful, but is mainly for data analysis, I never tried its workout functionality. As for Wattzap, I never gave it a fair try. I may resurrect an old laptop and try to see if I can get TrainerRoad to run via WINE on linux. Another option could be to try running an android emulator on linux and running the android TR app through there.
I just run TR from my android phone, because my laptop runs linux. (Getting my subscription was an easy win for TR, because neither zwift nor TSF have anything available that I can use!)
I can’t see them make a linux version, and even if they did, I’m not sure I’d use it. Running it off my phone seeme much less faff, and I’m not sure what advantages the desktop version really has. I wish there was a usable version of the workout creator though (but I think a web version is on the roadmap).
And yeah, if you want to do any data analysis, golden cheetah is available on linux.
Whilst I’d support the idea of a Linux version of trainerroad I wouldn’t dismiss windows 10 out of hand. Microsoft actually did a decent job on it and performance is absolutely fine on my 12 year old laptop that came installed with XP.
Another option to wine would be https://anbox.io/ that runs android on Linux.
I feel your pain, as I run Linux on my only laptop and use my (Android) phone for TR. I’ve contemplated picking up a secondhand tablet so I don’t have to squint; maybe that could be an option for you?
This has been the song of OSS enthusiasts for decades. I’ll keep using it because I’m a dev and it makes everything easier, but I’m not optimistic about Linux on the desktop for the general public.
No, porting a native Android app to desktop Linux is not straightforward. I think the regular desktop app is built on Electron, so if they were going to support Linux, it’d be much easier to start there. Nate talked about Linux compatibility a bit on Reddit a couple months ago:
It’s our device layer that makes it hard. That would have to be natively written on Linux.
It’s also something to test and code for forever if we did it. Linux doesn’t have the market share to justify us doing that.
I do all my TR workouts on my laptop with Debian Buster. I even use the BlueGiga BLED112 dongle they suggest. Just spin up Windows 10 in VirtualBox and install the TR software. If you’re using a dongle you can export it to the VM if you install the VirtualBox Extension Pack.
Any solution involving a virtual machine or an emulator is a mistake – you will absolutely get worse performance running Windows 10 inside a VM on a Linux machine than just installing Windows 10. Same with running an Android emulator, plus, if you value your sanity, don’t run the Android emulator.
The problem with WINE (and with the Android emulator) is getting a Bluetooth or ANT+ device to work. It might work. It might even work easily, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
You can get used Samsung Galaxy S7s off of eBay for $80. They will run TrainerRoad natively and have both Bluetooth and ANT+. You could also install Windows 10; I do not think it has the performance impact you imagine.
I got a fire tablet and side loaded google play store to install trainer road. No issues so far. I’m using Win10 on this computer, and it has been fine so far. It’s a aging Dell workstation I bought used for $35. Thank goodness for snobby corporate users. I wish I could run linux, but there is too much software that I want to run that requires windows.
You can probably still load Win10 for free, but it would require some searching on the web for instructions.
Firstly, I’d like to set everyone at ease by saying that when Windows stops supporting Windows 7, we plan to make a Legacy Version of the app that is frozen in time, allowing Windows 7 users to continue to use the app at the latest compatible version.
This version will not receive further updates, but users will continue to be able to train using the application indefinitely .
As for Lunux support, the market share is simply not large enough for us to justify building and supporting a fifth-application.
Feel free to reach out if you have any further questions.
Not in Tenerife, we grow grapes and make tonnes… Oh the open source wine is not an emulator thing… Hmmm. Let’s be honest, if your using Linux, FTP will mean something entirely different
I am here in a Linux only household too. For Trainerroad I just use my regular Android phone with an OTG dongle to plug in an Ant+ USB stick. OTG should be working on any recent Android 7+ phone. For Ant+ support you just need to install two apps.
+1 on the Samsung tablets. I’ve got a cheapo Samsung tablet that runs TR well enough. Built-in Ant+, so no extra dongles needed. It worked great for me as a backup until I finally got the new desktop app working well with an upgraded laptop.
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