Hi AMMRL,
Thanks to Greg, Laird, Ronald, Serge, Bob, Sebastian, we’re back up and
running. The information below would not have been possible without their
help!
I should have clarified: we did not have recent image to restore from, and
I was not able to restore Bruker’s clone CD (from install) to a Virtualbox
VM. That being said, I’m happy to report two working options:
TopSpin 3.2 on Windows 11
Bruker’s download page
<
https://www.bruker.com/protected/en/services/software-downloads/nmr/software/topspin-archive.html>
has the NT Toolkit 2 CD, containing the OpenText NFS Solo 14 server which can be
installed on Windows 11. After installing TopSpin 3.2, the CCU downloaded diskless
and “cf” worked properly. I didn’t test this setup any further, as I eventually
managed to get TopSpin 2.1 running and our users preferred that route.
TopSpin 2.1 on CentOS 5
Install Virtualbox 7.2.4 and create a CentOS 5
<
https://vault.centos.org/5.11/isos/x86_64/ > VM.
Set the first NIC to NAT, using the MAC address of the old PC, and connect it to
the campus network. Set the second NIC to "Bridged Adapter” and connect it
to the spectrometer. Install CentOS 5 with the GNOME desktop.
To install/update packages with yum, first edit /etc/yum/repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo, by:
*
Deleting all “mirrorlist” lines
*
Uncommenting all “baseurl” lines
*
Replacing
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/ with
http://archive.kernel.org/centos-vault/5.11/
because the versions at “centos.org” seem to require a newer version of
SSL than supported by CentOS 5.
*
Packages can now be updated, and a number of other packages should be installed
before proceeding:
sudo yum -y update
sudo yum install xinetd dhcp tftp tftp-server bootparamd gcc gcc-c++ glibc-devel glibc-headers kernel-headers libXmu.so.6 libXp libXpm.so.4 openmotif samba
The Bruker packages<
https://repo-bbio.bruker.com/CentOS/5/Bruker-Addon/repoview/index.html > or
RPM-GPG-KEY<
https://repo-bbio.bruker.com/CentOS/RPM-GPG-KEY-Bruker-AddOn-support > cannot be
downloaded in the normal way, apparently due to the SSL issue. Download the key and packages
listed below from the links above, then install them one-by-one in the order listed:
sudo rpm --import RPM-GPG-KEY-Bruker-AddOn-support.txt
sudo rpm -ivh cups-pdf-2.6.1-4.el5.brk.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh bruker-lockdown-session-1.0-0.el5.brk.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh bruker-topspin-environ-1.0-13.el5.brk.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh bruker-compatlibs-1.3-7.el5.brk.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh bruker-gdm-theme-1.3-1.el5.brk.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh bruker-acquisition-environ-1.0-2.el5.brk.noarch.rpm
Install TopSpin 2.1, then disable iptables and fix a diskless permissions issue:
sudo /sbin/service iptables stop
sudo /sbin/chkconfig iptables off
sudo chmod a+w /usr/diskless/clients/spect/lock/*
Reboot the CCU, do an nmr_restore from an old backup, run ‘cf’, and collect data.
I’ve since changed the first NIC from NAT to “Host-Only Adapter”, so
the VM is not connected to the Internet. At the moment, I’m using SMB to
get data from the VM to the campus network, which does require enabling SMB
1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support in Windows and accepting/mitigating the security
risks that come with that.
Best,
Sameer
--
Sameer Al-Abdul-Wahid, Ph.D.
Manager, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Centre<
http://nmr.uoguelph.ca/
University of Guelph
519-824-4120 x58914 / s.wahid_at_uoguelph.ca
> From: Sameer Al-Abdul-Wahid <s.wahid_at_uoguelph.ca>
> Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2025 at 15:41
> To: Main <main_at_ammrl.groups.io>
> Subject: Replacing an AVANCE II PC in 2025
Hello AMMRL,
Our AVANCE II computer died and I’m trying to replace it.
At the suggestions of others, I’ve started down the route of setting up
VirtualBox on our Windows 11 machine, so I can create a CentOS 5 VM to run
TopSpin 2.1. It’s a “two steps forward, one step back” process - for
example, I can install CentOS 5, but doing an update of the (non-Bruker)
packages requires a workaround.
Before I go too far down this path, I thought I’d ask the collective wisdom -
what have others done here? Are there newer Linux OSs that could work here?
Using Windows seems to rely on needing an NFS server that I cannot seem to find.
Our system could in theory support TopSpin 3.2 so I’d be open an option that
required me to use 3.2 as well.
Thanks for your time,
Sameer
--
Sameer Al-Abdul-Wahid, Ph.D.
Manager, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Centre<
http://nmr.uoguelph.ca/>
University of Guelph
519-824-4120 x58914 / s.wahid_at_uoguelph.ca
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