Unable to start PixInsight on Linux system [SOLVED]

[Googaliser]

Hi Everyone,

Have been using PixInsight for a while now in a Windows 10 environment - never any issues.
Am curious to explore Linux, attracted to the reported performance gains in PixInsight. I have tried installing the latest releases of both Ubuntu and Fedora. Installation goes fine - Icon appears under programs - but nothing when I execute in either environment. I do not know enough about Linux to start probing around trying to find missing libraries. I followed a similar post from a month ago where an experienced used was able to get it working. I spent several hours (into the early hours of the morning - if that sounds familiar with this hobby...) trying to replicate their steps but to no avail. libz.so.1 was one of the problem files.

Similar post: https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=10718.0

Since I am distro agnostic - if there is a distro where it installs as advertised - I would be grateful for tips. I have tried Ubuntu 17.10 and Fedora Workstation 26.

I love PixInsight and all my energies have gone into learning it - I just don't have the bandwidth at present to learn Linux too and desperately would like a plug-n-play solution.

Best regards to all, Marc

[Googaliser]

Hi - is anybody able to assist ? Thank you...

[jpaana]

On Ubuntu 17.10 I had to rename both libz.so.1 and libstdc++.so.6 to get it to work.

[Googaliser]

On Ubuntu 17.10 I had to rename both libz.so.1 and libstdc++.so.6 to get it to work.

Interesting - think those were the problem ones for me. Would you be able to show the instructions you used to achieve this ?

Much appreciated

[jpaana]

Just go to /opt/PixInsight/bin/lib directory and rename files libz.so.1 and libstdc++.so.6 to something else (or deleting the altogether works too, but I usually just add .bak to remember I've done something) either with a file manager or in terminal like this (directory is owned by root so have to use sudo):

Code: [Select]

cd /opt/PixInsight/bin/lib
sudo mv libz.so.1 libz.so.1.bak
sudo mv libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++.so.6.bak


[Googaliser]

Solved ! Thank you so much... am gaining confidence with Fedora so was less daunting.
Performance increase is astounding - both the CPU and Swap performances have increased by 100% versus windows 10 on a twin xeon rig. Worth learning Linux for that kind of boost !

[JFKoenig]

same problem and same solution (jpaana) on ubuntu 18.04 64bit
thank you!

[deanj]

Need a little help here with a new Ubuntu installation.  The library changes didn't work.  The libz.so.1 file or symbolic link was not in the /opt/PixInsight/bin/lib/ directory and renaming the libstdc++.so.6 symbolic link had no apparent effect.  When I go back to the ~/HOME/pi-install/Pixinsight/bin/ and then execute the ./PixInsight command I get "./PixInsight: error while loading shared libraries: libssl.so.10: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

So, how do I get it to work?

Also, the instructions on the PixInsight Software DIstribution page led me to believe that a desktop icon would be installed when I ran the ./installer.  No such luck here.

Lastly, the FAQ pages indicate that I need to put a copy of my license document in $HOME/.PixInsight but there isn't any such file...

Help, please.  Thanks.

[deanj]

Forgot to mention that I am using Ubuntu 18.04

[deanj]

OK, never mind.  Further research found the answer: https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=10489.0