How to Install on Linux?

[maadscientist]

Please excuse my inexperience with Linux. I have started the switch, my windows XP machines have begun to falter, and that is the last straw. I have installed Linux Mint, and find it fantastic. I can install Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope if needed, or any other edition that is preferred for PixInsight. The one thing that I cannot seem to find is how to install PixInsight once I have downloaded it. Mint want to use package installer, which does not show it. I cannot seem to do it from the command line either. I have read until I am blue in the face, so I thought I would use this resource for help. Sorry it is not directly related to PixInsight usage, but I am at my wits end and the XP is lasting between 4 and 8 minutes before the blue screen of death. Thanks for any assistance anyone can give me.

Dan L

[Cheyenne]

There are several different package formats in the Linux world (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_package_formats for some of the more popular formats).

In order to keep things simple and to make it as widely available in the Linux world, the PixInsight folks have used a common, but very very basic form of distribution.  The PixInsight package is a compressed tar file, kind of like .zip files used in Windows.  The PixInsight application is fairly self contained application and set of files.

I really don't do a lot of gui file management stuff, but here are some command line instructions (with commentary).

Start a command line session

download to a known location (directory) the .tar.gz file that matches the architecture you are running.  The .tar.gz file is a compress tar file.

create a new directory (folder) in your home directory, called PixInsight
    mkdir ~/PixInsight

(the ~ character is a Linux command line shortcut to mean your home directory)

move the downloaded tar file into this directory (lets assume that you downloaded the file to your Desktop folder)
    mv ~/Desktop/PI-x11-x86-01.05.02.0503-20090605-c.tar.gz ~/PixInsight

go into that directory and extract the files
    cd ~/PixInsight
    tar xfz PI-x11-x86-01.05.02.0503-20090605-c.tar.gz

PixInsight is now installed.

There is a file located in the installed directory that is used to invoke PixInsight
    cd
(this puts you pack into your home directory)

And if you now enter:

    PixInsight/bin/PixInsight.sh

this will run PixInsight.

Depending on what desktop (gnome, kde, etc.) you are using, you can create a shortcut or an application icon to launch the program (just invoke the PixInsight.sh file).

If you avoid placing any other data into the PixInsight directory, then upgrading to a new version is very easy.

Just empty out the ~/PixInsight directory and extract the application from the new tar file.

Just a quick comment, I did have a minor problem invoking PixInsight, in that one of the supplied library files has an assumption on the presence of a system library file that was not on my system.  There was a very simple work around, but did require me to slightly modify the PixInsight.sh file).  But I suspect that Minty (which is based on ubuntu distro) shouldn't have the same problem.

Anyway good luck. 
   
   

[maadscientist]

Thanks. I had trouble with the command line again, so I used the explorer interface to make a new directory and drag the tar file there. Double clicking on it unzipped it. I did finally run a command line for the .sh and it worked! I think what tripped me on the command line is the desktop has a folder Dans Home, but the explorer calls it Dan, then I found the Dan folder under Home...so somewhere the md could not work because apparently I did not know where I was in the tree. Funny, I programmed trs 80s, built my own XT and AT machines, have built an entire cartographic mapping system on Win NT  in the 90's and have 10 computers in my house and Astronomy house networked and can still fumble the ball on a simple md command. Ain't life grand! 

Thanks for your help,

Dan L

[Cheyenne]

If you open a command line and simply type in

echo $PWD

that will tell you where you are in the "tree"

Where some of the confusion comes in, is that some of the gui navigators/explorers, etc.  don't call your home directory by it's proper name.

From a "techie" standpoint here is a quick overview of the Linux filesystem layout and where things are, etc.

http://tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/sect_03_01.html

Glad you got it running