Don't you HATE it when LINUX users are 'dissed by Corporate America?

As a new CPAP user, I quickly discovered that the SleepMapper software for my Philips Respironics® CPAP machine is only supported for Windows or Mac computers, with Linux users being once again, left out in the cold by corporate America. Like I have done in the past, with so many other companies that offer little or no support for those of us that use LINUX computers, I contacted Philips about the lack of support for LINUX users, and asked if it was Philips official policy that only people who owned Windows or Mac computers should be users of their products. You can see their answer to my inquiry below.

And as much as I hate to be to one to have to point this out to the fine folks at Philips, the way this answer translates back to me as someone that does not use a Windows or Mac computer is that, even though I am a Philips customer, I do not matter enough to them, being a big profitable corporation, to care about providing service to me, and others like me. And it is sad that Philips, like so many other companies, has decided to take this approach, when the effort it would take to support LINUX, considering how closely it resembles the BSD-based Mac OS, is truly minimal.

But I decided to take this rejection of my concerns as a Philips consumer as a challenge. In my original inquiry, I had suggested to their support personnel that it would not be all that difficult to modify the Windows version of the SleepMapper SD card import program so that it would work under LINUX when run in a virtual WIndows machine with the popular Virtualbox software. Since Philips would not attempt to make those types of modifications to their software, I set out to discover if there was indeed a way to get their software to work in Virtualbox.

I am happy to report that I did, indeed discover a solution, and have given a detailed explanation of that solution on this blog entry. Not only did I get the SleepMapper SD card import program to work, those same steps allow the much more comprehensive Windows version of the open source Sleepyhead CPAP software to work in a virtual Windows machine with Virtualbox and LINUX as well. To be honest, the open source Sleepyhead CPAP software gives a much more detailed analysis of the data from the Philips Respironics® CPAP machine than the Philips supplied SleepMapper software.

In closing, if you are a LINUX user who is also a user of a Philips Respironics® CPAP machine, and have been informed by Philips that they offer zero support unless you are using their software on a genuine Windows or Mac computer, hopefully a Google search has lead you to this blog entry, and you now are on your way to finding a solution, that you can indeed use not only the SleepMapper software on your LINUX machine, but also the more comprehensive Windows Sleepyhead software as well.

And Philips is more than welcome to refer any LINUX users to this blog entry, with my compliments. It's not that Philips couldn't have had one of their computer people work out this solution, it's that they simply didn't think it was important enough to bother with.

Fortunately for any Philips Respironics® users who only have access to a LINUX computer, I disagree, and offer this solution for one and all to use.

David Jarrett © 4/08/2015

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