Chromebook

[notaclue]

My brother wants to do so imaging. That is fine so he can have fun. He decided to purchase a Lenovo Cromebook laptop. 

 

Discovered a problem as you may have guessed. Firstly it is Win11. No big deal. It is new and has what is needed for USB ports and other bits all laptops have. So we get Deep Sky Tracker. This is where the problem starts.

 

Apparently Cromebook does not like the .exe file format. It is as though I am speaking French to an alien and I am English. Incompatible.

 

So how do I get my brother to start his fun if the laptop is not liking the file. Are there any other programs out there that can do what is needed to get some enjoyment. Looked in play store and seen Stellarium but that is of no use for star stacking or imaging and some others but they seen a bit dodgy.

Any ideas?

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Is it Windows 11 or ChromeOS?  If it's a ChromeBook then it will be running ChromeOS, not Windows 11 and thus will be very, very limited in the available software.

In all honesty, whlist Chromebooks definitely have their place, they are just running a very basic version of Linux and are frustratingly locked down to prevent casual users from installing Windows.

EDIT: If I'm being honest, you're probably better off returning the Chromebook and buying a standard Windows laptop from the likes of Backmarket or Laptops Direct.  Second-hand business laptops are the way to go in most instances, unless you need graphical power in which case something with a dedicated graphics card would be better.  For basic imaging and stacking, you don't need a hugely powerful device.  Your budget will determine what you can get but in these circumstances I'd suggest that a Chromebook is almost useless.

Edited December 30, 2023 by GrumpiusMaximus

[Adam J]

On 30/12/2023 at 20:00, notaclue said:

My brother wants to do so imaging. That is fine so he can have fun. He decided to purchase a Lenovo Cromebook laptop. 

 

Discovered a problem as you may have guessed. Firstly it is Win11. No big deal. It is new and has what is needed for USB ports and other bits all laptops have. So we get Deep Sky Tracker. This is where the problem starts.

 

Apparently Cromebook does not like the .exe file format. It is as though I am speaking French to an alien and I am English. Incompatible.

 

So how do I get my brother to start his fun if the laptop is not liking the file. Are there any other programs out there that can do what is needed to get some enjoyment. Looked in play store and seen Stellarium but that is of no use for star stacking or imaging and some others but they seen a bit dodgy.

Any ideas?

Sorry to say this but your not going to be doing any imaging using a chrome book. You need a good old windows PC with windows 10 or 11 on it. Not sure what I can suggest, there is a small chance you can install windows on it but to be honest your just as likely to brick it trying. 

[Ian McCallum]

7 hours ago, Adam J said:

Sorry to say this but your not going to be doing any imaging using a chrome book. You need a good old windows PC with windows 10 or 11 on it. Not sure what I can suggest, there is a small chance you can install windows on it but to be honest your just as likely to brick it trying. 

Would it work with VNC and a RPi?

[Adam J]

18 minutes ago, Ian McCallum said:

Would it work with VNC and a RPi?

No idea to be honest. 

[Paul M]

I've seen a youtube channel demonstrating how to hack a chromebook to install a standard Linux Distro, Ubunto for example.

With that you can do a lot. KStars and Ekos are very good and there are many other astro packages for guiding, processing etc, for Linux.

Not something you'd want to do with a computer under wanranty though, i'd guess!

[notaclue]

10 hours ago, ElizabethJones said:

Any update?

All seems to be not good. May as well get him a Win 10 laptop and see how things go from there.