OS on your computer/s

[Robert_T]

Two words... "Vista" and "don't"

and from a song "if I could turn back time"...well if I could, I'd reformat the thing and install XP!!!

the little bells and whistles (which I grant it has a few) can't make up for the program incompatabilities, dozens of hours lost in trying to get all the programs I used to have working on XP no problem working again on this... some never to be recovered... $ wasted on hardware I've bought that worked on XP that doesn't on vista...not to mentioned the constant and annoying asking for permission to do just about everything (found out how to turn that off now).

[marki]

This may seem like a silly question but have you set the .exe for your older programs to run in XP SP2 compatable mode??? It worked for me.

[TrevorW]

I use XP SP2 on three computers all networked and the old addage applies "if it's not broken don't fix it". I've no desire too change, after all these years from the DOS days to now when you have a stable platform stick with it. Vista is just another way for Gates and Co. to make further money and you'd think $50 Billion was enough.

[drmorbius (Randall)]

I've just ditched Windows XP on my main PC in favour of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy. I reinstalled my Windows license on a virtual machine using VMWare () so I can run those few Windows programs that I must have.

My machine now boots in 40 seconds as opposed to 3.5 minutes and everything runs in half the time. And I don't miss having to use Ctl-Alt-Del...

I also use Ubuntu on all my old PC's (the 486 ones with 512M RAM) so the kids have their own machines for homework. Works most excellently!

Ubuntu is quite mature now and I think it's more a viable alternative for the average bloke (and gal) on the street.

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by drmorbius

Ubuntu is quite mature now and I think it's more a viable alternative for the average bloke (and gal) on the street.

Alls well and good if you can find software in the distributions repository to do everything what you want. If not you have to learn to compile code and become a computer 'hobbyist', as opposed to computer 'user'. Once you start down this path every kernel upgrade becomes potentially a saga of recompiling all your apps and hours of googling to find answers to fix the inevitable broken things that stop working.

For the most part, windows is windows. The libraries are there and again for the most part, things just work without dealing with a multitude of libraries requiring maintenance or command line tweaking.

Im now at a point where a needed application has had a long awaited functionality upgrade and Im stuck with a decision of forgoing it, or upgrading a 1year old linux distro that I have spent countless hours in configuring and im really loathe to go through the pain.

[Solanum]

Work PC: SUSE 10.3/Win XP SP2 dual boot
Home Desktop: Mandriva 2008.1
Home Server: Mandriva 2007.1
Laptop: Mandriva 2008.0/WinXP SP3 dual boot
Kids laptop: Mandriva 2007.1

Originally Posted by Starkler

Alls well and good if you can find software in the distributions repository to do everything what you want. If not you have to learn to compile code and become a computer 'hobbyist', as opposed to computer 'user'. Once you start down this path every kernel upgrade becomes potentially a saga of recompiling all your apps and hours of googling to find answers to fix the inevitable broken things that stop working.

This isn't really true. Most major distributions contain just about every bit of opensource software that is available apart from extremely obscure things. For instance Mandriva even includes GIS software. Kernel upgrades aren't needed for software, only drivers and even then only drivers that don't play nice and require non-free kernel patches. Even then there are ways around this such as DKMS that do this automatically on boot if you alter the kernel (default with Mandriva).

Originally Posted by Starkler

For the most part, windows is windows. The libraries are there and again for the most part, things just work without dealing with a multitude of libraries requiring maintenance or command line tweaking.

Im now at a point where a needed application has had a long awaited functionality upgrade and Im stuck with a decision of forgoing it, or upgrading a 1year old linux distro that I have spent countless hours in configuring and im really loathe to go through the pain.

Windows has just as many library conflicts as linux, if you look at the average windows box there are multiple versions of many of it's libraries. Admittedly, it doesn't have as many GUI toolkits.... Also, many linux distros will upgrade gracefully without wiping your settings. As long as you keep /home and don't format it, you can even do a fresh install/install a new distro without affecting your user settings.

Everard - desktop linux user for nearly ten years....

PS If you are a linux beginner (and I'm not saying your are!) and want a bit of advice on this, then feel free to ask. If you're an expert, feel free to tell me to shut up!

[marki]

My machine now boots in 40 seconds as opposed to 3.5 minutes and everything runs in half the time.

Just timed my bootup including typing in the password; 30 seconds. Like I said it just depends on your hardware as long as you keep the registry in good order. Speaking of hardware and bootup time, does anyone remember the good old commadore 64 with the casette tape drive??? Load the tape and wait half an hour before you could play . Games were good though, I had america's cup and a really basic golf game. I tried Linux once, redhat or something similar. It was just too much work.

[Tandum (Robin)]

I had DeepSkyStacker telling me it was out of ram on this 2gig Vista quad core box when using drizzle, so I stuck in another 4gig, reinstalled to Vista 64 and it still tells me it's out of ram

I don't think it matters what you use so long as it works for you and you are comfortable using it.

[marki]

Originally Posted by Tandum

I had DeepSkyStacker telling me it was out of ram on this 2gig Vista quad core box when using drizzle, so I stuck in another 4gig, reinstalled to Vista 64 and it still tells me it's out of ram

I don't think it matters what you use so long as it works for you and you are comfortable using it.

I do not use drizzle as I have not had much success with it and find it easier to do mosaics manually but I can imagine such a response (gotta love windows ). If he got the DSI working on 64 bit vista he has done better than me as I cannot find drivers that will work. Envisage works well on my laptop which runs the 32 bit version with 2048 kb of ram. Have yet to get any error mesages on that.

[Tandum (Robin)]

He doesn't run a DSI on a 64bit system cos HE knows better. This system is my desktop PC where I work and process images. My dirt cheap $500 XP laptop captures images, runs the DSI as a guide camera and dumps everything where this machine can see them. Drizzle in autostar is different to drizzle in dss. In dss it enhances image resolution and I have dumped the help file to explain how :-

Drizzle
Drizzle is a method developed by the NASA for the Hubble Deep Field observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The algorithm is also known as Variable Pixel Linear Reconstruction.

It has a wide range of usages among which it can be used to enhance de resolution of a stack of images compared to the resolution of a single image while preserving the characteristics of the image (color, brightness).
Basically each image is super sampled just before being stacked, like twice or thrice enlarged (it can be any value greater than 1 but DeepSkyStacker is only proposing 2 or 3 which are common values), then projected on a finer grid of pixels.

The result is that the size of the final image is doubled (or tripled) and that a small object that was occupying only a few dozens pixels, will be using twice or thrice the number of pixels and will be easier to post process.

[marki]

I am aware of what drizzle does but as the meade publications states there is little to gain using pixel fractions to oversample alone (in envisage) and they recommend you increase the size of the image at the same time. This then starts a sequence of exposures in which the telescope moves to several different positions whilst the camera takes exposures. If you use a mono camera it can take an age to get a set of frames depending on the settings you use. It also increases the chance of tracking error which will ruin the pic anyway meaning much time is wasted unless your telescope has no periodic error. Mine has and as much as I try to remove it by pec training, messing the gears and auto guiding it still does unexpected things at the most inconvenient times so I try to minimise the exposure time as much as is possible which is why I do not use it as I seem to get better pics the old fashioned way. Perhaps one day I will be able to afford a paramount ME or similar but right now everything is a compromise. By the way, Sorry about the HE thing, I just misread your post.

Mark