Astro-Software I found on my Eee-Pc

[Dingo (Karl)]

I was looking thru what actually software comes with these $500 little computers , when I stumbled across something called KStars. I opened it open and lo and behold there is the night sky. I am still looking thru it all but I have noticed it's very interactive, can be as detailed as you like( even down to tracking at .125 of sec) and can even operate a telescope. Not that I have a telescope that can be controlled via comp, but if I ever do I at least have the software. :-)

Here's the link to the actual website http://edu.kde.org/kstars/
Sorry if it's everyone knows about it. :-)

Dingo

[Robert9 (Robert)]

Looks to be very good. But, I gather it runs under LINUX - or am I wrong?
Robert

[tnbk00 (Daniel)]

yeah its a pretty cool linux app thats been around for a while....its an app developed for the KDE desktop environment (hence the K in Kstars)

Good find....go linux

[Jen]

good find Dingo

[Dingo (Karl)]

Originally Posted by Robert9

Looks to be very good. But, I gather it runs under LINUX - or am I wrong?
Robert

No, you are correct. Sorry about that but I was unaware that the Eee-Pc
was Linux based. As I was hoping it came in a Mac version for my desktop

[Dingo (Karl)]

Originally Posted by tnbk00

yeah its a pretty cool linux app thats been around for a while....its an app developed for the KDE desktop environment (hence the K in Kstars)

Good find....go linux

I am really happy to have found this as the Eee-Pc is nice and small. Good for travel. :-)

[Dingo (Karl)]

Originally Posted by Jen

good find Dingo

Thanks Jen, I cant wait til I know what it ALL means.

[xnomad]

KDE isn't Linux, it's a Desktop environment. This can be run on Windows and other operating systems, and then you can install Kstarts. However I think if you're inclined to install KDE on Windows then you are probably the type of person who is running Linux anyway.

[Robert9 (Robert)]

Will it run under any Linux version or must it be a GNU based version? (Getting complicated) I have an old machine with Ubuntu Linux and also have a copy of Xandros which I could easily put on if required. Any info/advice gladly accepted.
Robert

[tnbk00 (Daniel)]

ubuntu (in my experience) usually uses gnome not kde. Not sure which xandros distro you have.....so not sure...the key is to get something running kde not gnome.

kubuntu vs std ubuntu

[Robert9 (Robert)]

Ta, I'll follow that up.
Robert

[Solanum]

As stated above Kstars runs under the KDE Desktop Environment. In fact it is part of the standard set of applications that is shipped with KDE (well the kde-edu part anyway).

KDE will run under various unices, including Linux, BSD, Solaris (I think) etc.

Some KDE versions are tied to certain KDE versions, the major KDE versions in use right now are 3.5 and 4.2. So it's best to install the appropriate package for your operating system rather than download it from the KStars website.

Ubuntu does, as stated above, default to the Gnome desktop environment, however you can install KDE through the Ubuntu package manager, you don't have to install kubuntu instead. Be aware that it will install 3-400 mb of packages if you do.

Finally, Stellarium (www.stellarium.org) also runs well on the eee pc as does xephem.

[Robert9 (Robert)]

Thanks for that info. being an old computer that I am happy to experiment with, I installed KUBUNTU. All I have to do now is find a compiled version of Kstars. I downloaded what I could find only to discover it needs compiling and to do this requires a host of other programs. Aaaaggghhh! Does anyone know where they keep the compiled version?
Robert

[Solanum]

Originally Posted by Robert9

Thanks for that info. being an old computer that I am happy to experiment with, I installed KUBUNTU. All I have to do now is find a compiled version of Kstars. I downloaded what I could find only to discover it needs compiling and to do this requires a host of other programs. Aaaaggghhh! Does anyone know where they keep the compiled version?
Robert

They probably don't keep a compiles version on their website. Because of the number of systems that KDE runs on they would have to keep hundreds of versions.

Use the (k)ubuntu package manger (synaptic? "add/remove applications" menu entry?), it should be there, it may not be an entire package in its own right though it might be installed as part of a kde-edu package. I use Mandriva rather than (k)ubuntu so I'm not familiar with their package manager, but I'm sure you can do a search from within it for 'kstars', though you might have to look at the search options if it isn't a package in its own right.

[tnbk00 (Daniel)]

YOu should be able to install from the software updated app...Under the Gnome version its called synaptic, not sure for KDE but I am sure there is a package manager of some kind.

Installing through there should take care of the dependencies also. I thnk the module you want is kde-edu

[Robert9 (Robert)]

Thanks for your help. I finally downloaded the entire education package, which included KStars. All goes well. Seems a good program although I think Stellarium as just a planetarium is better. Certainly has better imaging of objects, e.g. Saturn in Kstars is just a static picture whereas in Stellarium, one can actually see the changes in spatial attitude including the positioning of the moons, as the years are changed. But the ability to list what's visible, planning etc. is excellent. Need more exploring. Certainly seems to be a useful program. I'd compare it more closely to Astroplanner which is excellent software and uses charts similar to Cartes du Ciel.
Robert

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by Dingo

No, you are correct. Sorry about that but I was unaware that the Eee-Pc
was Linux based. As I was hoping it came in a Mac version for my desktop

You can run them under OS X - on older versions of OS X you have to install X Windows. On newer versions, it's already installed. I'm pretty damn sure that there's a OS X fork somewhere...

The Asus eee-pc originally started shipping with a customised version of Xandros (yuck!) in order to save costs. After it became popular and a developed a cult following, they started to push Windows more. I didn't think much of Asus before, and think even less of them now. It's a fad imho, nothing more.

Originally Posted by xnomad

KDE isn't Linux, it's a Desktop environment. This can be run on Windows and other operating systems, and then you can install Kstarts. However I think if you're inclined to install KDE on Windows then you are probably the type of person who is running Linux anyway.

Correct. KDE stands for K Desktop Environment. It was originally started because the desktop environment that originally shipped with Linux in the early years (clones of CDE, Common Desktop Environment) was very ugly looking. After KDE kicked off, people complained about the licence, and so Gnome was born. I personally prefer KDE (up to 3.5 anyways, not keen on 4). Linux isn't an operating system btw - it's a kernel. GNU/Linux is a much more correct naming convention for the operating system, since most of the software that ships on a Linux distribution is GNU developed, or uses the GNU GPL. For the geeks amongst us, GNU and the GPL was developed by Richard Matthew Stallman, who started the FSF (Free Software Foundation). The man is a brilliant genius imho and a wonderful speaker. GNU stands for GNU is NOT UNIX (a recursive acrononym, something hackers love doing).

KDE can be installed under Windows now, and is relatively stable as well by all accounts. This means that Kstars, and hopefully the most excellent K3B (the best CD/DVD burning software in the world imho) can run on Windows. Awesome.

Originally Posted by Robert9

Will it run under any Linux version or must it be a GNU based version? (Getting complicated) I have an old machine with Ubuntu Linux and also have a copy of Xandros which I could easily put on if required. Any info/advice gladly accepted.
Robert

All Linux distributions are technically GNU/Linux. Let's see - bash, tcsh, ksh (shells) are all distributed by the FSF. GNU Make, binutils, GCC are all developed and worked on by the FSF. These are development tools, which are necessary for the modern Linux system to work. Many other core parts of the modern Linux distribution are FSF products.

You may want to consider a variation of Ubuntu that's specifically designed for the eee PC:

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download-netbook

kstars is part of the kdeedu meta package. If you're on a Debian based distribution (Debian, Xandros, Ubuntu to name a few), you can easily install it either via synaptic (a front end GUI to aptitude), or from a command line shell via apt-get or aptitude get. I'm old school, so I still use, and prefer apt-get. To install it, you can probably get away with something like:

apt-get install kde kdeedu

apt is quite smart for a package management system and should work out the dependencies pretty much automagically. NEVER hit yet until you read the output of apt-get properly and make sure it's not going to remove tonnes of packages from your system etc. Newbies always get caught out by this ;-)

A test run (without installing it) can be done by inserting an "s" switch, i.e.

apt-get install -s packagename

I'm an old hand at Debian, and I dislike Ubuntu ;-) I prefer CLI (command line interface) to GUI. I suck @ bash scripting, sed, gawk etc, but if you really know what you're doing, you can be 100x more powerful and quicker from the command line than you'll EVER been from a GUI. DOS sucks. Major. EMS sucks as well (Microsoft Powershell).

Oh, and there's a KDE version of Ubuntu, called Kubuntu.

Solanum, if you're using Kubuntu, you should be able to gain access to the kstars package.

apt-cache search kstars

will search for that package and tell you if it's found.

apt-cache policy kstars

will show you detailed information on that package

You can also use the back end package management system (dpkg) to search for packages:

dpkg-query -l kstars

The output can be tricky to understand, "ii" means installed. There are other status codes, which mean a variety of different things. You can also use Synaptics of course, but that's for wimps

Dave

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Wait till you install from src code ;-)

./configure && make && make install

As long as the config file in the src package is OK, that's all you need to do. Uninstalling from src is more difficult, which is why using a package management system like apt-get or synaptic is better.

I can easily and completely remove EVERYTHING from an installed package on a Debian system by:

apt-get remove --purge packagename

Not a single thing is left on the system pertaining to the package in question. Try doing that on Windows ;-) dll files left over, system files left over, program file components left over, registry entries, you name it. One of the things I dislike about Windows...amongst them the registry, crappy shell (cmd.com, i.e DOS to the ordinary person) and dll files. :-)

I much prefer to be able to read a human readable text file than Registry garbage.

Dave