Which linux for PixInsight

[gvanhau]

Hello
I just had a crash of my SAMSUNG EVO SSD drive with my window 8 operating system (only three months old) .
While I claim for the guarantee, and since I am only using this desktop for image processing, I am evaluating if instead of windows I could install Linux.
So the questions are which distrubution?
What other apps do I have to install?
Is there any display calibration hw/soft like spider for linux?
Do I need a antivirus?

Geert

[NGC7789]

I have had great success with Ubuntu 14.04. According to the system requirement page Fedora is the recommended platform but I had difficulty getting the installer to work in dual boot on my Hackintosh. In OS X I use the open source monitor calibration DispcalGUI to be found here: http://dispcalgui.hoech.net/. I haven't used it on Ubuntu yet but it should work. I haven't had to install any other software and I haven't installed antivirus as I only use it for PI processing. I still do my surfing in OS X.

[Carlos Milovic]

Hi Geert

At the development team we are using mainly Fedora. Any other main distribution should work fine too. So, there is not much to worry about. IMO, both Ubuntu and Fedora have great support from theyr users/forums, and are updated quite often. I find Fedora with KDE the best suited for production, but Ubuntu may be friendlier for people just begining in linux. You may also install the Kubuntu spin off, with the KDE desktop. Anyway, you may take a look at the other desktop choises, and install what suits you better (Gnome, Unity, XCFE, etc.).

If you want a dual/multiple boot system, you should proceed by first installing any windows OS, in chronological order (older first), and then any Linux OS.
For other useful apps, do a google search like this: "Fedora post-installation". You'll get several blogs with useful suggestions. Just make sure to match the OS release number.

About color calibration, I think that Spiders are not supported in Linux. Anyway, CMS is supported, and implemented in PixInsight through LittleCMS (if I am not wrong). So, if you have a valid profile, it should work without problems. I have a calibrated (by factory) Dell monitor, so I don't bother with this.

Lastly, forget about AV. You will not need them in Linux. A firewall may be handy, but Linux is pretty much a secure system.

[gvanhau]

Thank you NGC7789 and Carlos.

After some issues, I could install Fedora 18 onto my desktop PC.  I first tried Fedora 20 but had trouble with it, at startup. It seems that there are several bugs in that distribution.

Currently I have three issues with with PI running on Fedora:
1.- when selecting files wild characters dont work. For instance in star align module, I can not select IMG*_c, I have to select them by hand.
2.- Also to select a range of image files with the mouse, I have to click on the first image and move the mouse before releasing the button, else PI selects only that image.
3.- I tried to build a mosaic, and Star align crashed with a memory fault. (tried build mosaic and build seperate)

The first two issues may be config problems, but the third one seems more like a bug.

I also run the benchmark. The performance was somewhat better than Windows, although the real feel does not show a signnificant change.

Geert

[Carlos Milovic]

Hi Geert

I'm running F20 at home, without problems (mostly), and it did solve some bugs in F18 related to dual displays. Overall, it seems the best distro since F14, where I had things quite well fine-tuned and they messed that with changes to the linux core in F15
Here at the office I'm running F19, also without problems. The startup seems to be a bit slower than F20, but nothing serious.
I would recommend to stay close to the most current release, 2 numbers down at most, since older releases are not updated, and you may end with some incompatibilities with the newer libraries used in PI.

[NGC7789]

I too had no trouble with F20 as far as Linux was concerned. It performed better "out of the box" than Ubuntu although I was eventually able so tweak Ubuntu to make it comparable. My problem was getting it to play nice with my OS X boot. And I would attribute that to my lack of knowledge (couldn't get grub to install where I wanted it to) than a problem with Fedora. Although Ubuntu gave me install options to solve my problem that Fedora apparently did not.

[gvanhau]

Hi Geert

I'm running F20 at home, without problems (mostly), and it did solve some bugs in F18 related to dual displays. Overall, it seems the best distro since F14, where I had things quite well fine-tuned and they messed that with changes to the linux core in F15
Here at the office I'm running F19, also without problems. The startup seems to be a bit slower than F20, but nothing serious.
I would recommend to stay close to the most current release, 2 numbers down at most, since older releases are not updated, and you may end with some incompatibilities with the newer libraries used in PI.

Yes, I'm aware of that.
The problems I had with F20 seem to be related to Hardware, and searching the internet on the error mesages I got,  at some fedora site, they said they made some mistakes in the buid, trying to fix a mayor bug.  So I skiped to version 18.
I did not try version 19 

Geert