No I am not talking about my wife but rather my trusty EeePC 701. I have had this netbook for almost 5 years and it has never let me down ever. It still gets used to configure routers and surf the internet but I have noticed recently that its lack of horsepower in the CPU department is becoming a problem. So what to do?
Enter stage left my rekindled interest in astronomy. As a kid I loved astronomy but then I went to university and found beer and women and so astronomy went on the back burner. Recently I have feel the urge to take it back up and this is where the EeePC comes into the fray. How about using the EeePC to run some astronomy software and then using it to look at star charts when out observing the night sky? It is definitely small and robust enough to fit in my rucksack so why not have a go and see what happens.
First thing to do is choose what operating system to run on it and in this case I have gone for Linux Mint. I have found Linux Mint to be a very capable operating system and when you run it with the XFCE desktop it is not resource intensive either. Next it is onto which astronomy software to run. Google is your best friend here and I found this list of free astronomical software which runs on Linux, Mac and Windows. I intend to try out Aladin and if it doesn’t suit my requirements then I will try something else on the list.
The forecast over the next couple of days is cloudy in the evenings (with some rain) so this will give me a chance to install the software and have a play. As for the EeePC it isn’t going out to pasture just yet as I will always find new roles for it. Until it dies that is.
About the Author
Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.
For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.
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