Linux anyone ?

[hairymunky]

Anyone using Linux for their astro work/imaging etc?

I downloaded registax - but it won't run in my Linux box,

meaning I have to use the wife's PC to stack the images,

which is a great source of amusement for my wife, as I have

not had to touch a windows PC for quite a number of years

now - she knows how annoyed I get having to ask her, for

a quick shot of the PC!!!!!

Is there any naitive stacking programs for Linux....?

Help!!!

[geppetto]

Not heard of anything sadly..

Lack of astro software is what keeps me from using my prefered Suse Linux :?

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

I have to use a Unix box to monitor the network here at work, and frankly it drives me mental. For all people slag Microsoft it's a positive joy to work on a Windows box after trying to do the simplest of tasks on a Unix device. There's a reason Linux doesn't catch on guys.

[hairymunky]

Linux can be difficult especially when vendors don't like to release

drivers for their hardware on that platform - I've just gave up on

trying to get my Quickcam to work (read as "Just installed windows

so I can try imaging with said webcam"..)

Found some stacking software that will let me stack/refine my images

although I've not tried it yet (need some clear skies).

For planetarium software, Ive got stellarium (runs on just about

any platform). Basically everything apart from the webcam driver!!!!

I suppose like everything else, the OS/computer is just a tool, and as

much as I hate to admit it, I think if I want to try astro-imaging seriously,

then its got to be on a windows box...

[GordonCopestake]

some webcams work with linux some dont. For the price of them it's worthwhile buying one with good support. I would have thought that there were quickcam drivers available for *nix, have a look on sourceforge.

I ran gentoo and slackware on my laptop for many years but never used a webcam. However during my travels I have seen support for webcams so know it's possible. Also make sure you are using a latest 2.6 kernel as there are lots of improvements (and new drivers) over the 2.4 kernel thats supplied as default on some older distro's

[GordonCopestake]

A quick google returns this as the number one hit:

http://qce-ga.sourceforge.net/

if its any help

[hairymunky]

Thanks Gordon.

I've already tried it on my Dapper Drake box. It shows under dmesg, but I jiggered it up somewhere, and

it doesn't create the proper /dev entries.

Will try again at the weekend on a fresh install If that doesn't work then its off to the Ubuntu forums

for some seriously needed help

Cheers

[GordonCopestake]

Try it with fedora instead, its likley that the drivers are built in and will work out of the box. Or go hardcore and use gentoo, theres an ebuild for it

[hairymunky]

Running Gentoo on another desktop. The thought never even entered my mind....

Will try it tomorrow

G

[Macavity]

As a general comment, I use SuSE Linux for mailing/internet etc. I have one of those KVM (keyboard-video-mouse) multiplexer to an XP machine for "running software". But I appreciate the virtues of both. On balance, I am lazy, so don't install much software on linux. (I used to "system manage", for my sins, but this is now a LEISURE activity!). My Windoze experience was rather blighted by WinME, but XP has come on a lot since then...

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Hold onto your hats when Win Vista comes along then, I just took it off because my webcam and a load of graphics software and packages dont work with it. Nor do many games. And you better be sure to have gigs of memory installed next to your top of the line graphics card, otherwise it's a real pain in the ass just opening it up. Dont get me started on it's networking either, and the permissions thing just drives you mental! I'll be sticking with XP for as long as I can.

[hairymunky]

Hold onto your hats when Win Vista comes along then, I just took it off because my webcam and a load of graphics software and packages dont work with it. Nor do many games. And you better be sure to have gigs of memory installed next to your top of the line graphics card, otherwise it's a real pain in the *beep* just opening it up. Dont get me started on it's networking either, and the permissions thing just drives you mental! I'll be sticking with XP for as long as I can.

Its crazy the min. specs for vista - I imagine it won't run on about 60-70% of the home PCs that are used at the

moment. Not that long ago, 64Mb was a hell of a lot of memory - now you need 2Gb(?) of RAM just to feed

the OS!! (Thats more than the dik size of my wee laptop!!).

[GordonCopestake]

Vista is designed to come pre-installed on new machines. XP was designed the same way and when it was first released people went "My god those specs are high!!". Now my phone can run XP nearly. Technology changes very fast and a major new release of windows lasts for 5 years give or take. We will all have 5GHz pentium 7's with 12 gig of ram in 5 years time etc

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

And it'll still crash and appear to be slow because Windoze will be doing stuff in the background that hasn't been invented yet.

Captain Chaos

[GordonCopestake]

Actually since I've installed XP SP2 I've not h :oops:ad XP crash at all. I thought I'd never say this but it seems to actually have achieved stability! I would even go so far as to recommend XP to friends...... :oops:

[hairymunky]

Webcam's working

Always helps if I boot into my 2.6 Kernel, and not the default 2.4 thats supplied !!!!!

XP is better now it has its spyware thingy update. Used to hate having to go and

clean friends/families PCs which were infected because of spyware. (*cough* Use firefox *cough*)

For me, Linux was a winner, because of the low cost (as in free), it also allowed me to learn

programming in c & c++ (plus others Perl, shell etc). The cost of visual studio for the windows

platform = new telescope for monkey (so Linux won) and I got to save up for my LB

EDIT: Actually winXP is a good OS now that lots of the features (Bugs) have been sorted.

Linux is catching up on the mainstream desktops, but as it is based on a CLI model, with

the GUI secondary, I think it still has a way to go

[GordonCopestake]

Linux is based on Unix which has always been a server operating system, so to make it into a desktop operating system requires some work. Windows was always a desktop operating system, so to make it into a server operating system requires some work. They both try to be something they are not. In my mind Linux is for servers and Windows is for desktops. The right tool for the right job, I have nothing against either OS and have used both for about 12 years

[hairymunky]

They both try to be something they are not.

Yep. Windows for just about everything, and Linux for networking and behind the scenes stuff.

cheers for helping me get that wecam working by the way - something was going to

give and it was probably going to be the wecam leaving the room (via a closed window) hehehe

All I need is just some more cloudless nights to try it out ....