----- Original Message ----- From: "Bruce Robertson" ve9qrp@gmail.com To: w8iss@wideopenwest.com Cc: "AMSAT-BB" amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 9:25 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Predict 2.2.3 for Linux
On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 9:44 PM, w8iss@wideopenwest.com wrote:
Bruce,
Do you have Gnome Predict installed also? I have found the same problem after installing Gpredict, but it will do it still even after uninstalling gpredict.
James W8ISS
I just checked my Ubuntu 7.10 and, no, I did not have the gpredict package installed. In a private letter to KD2BD, I noted two other things: first, if I uninstalled the package and built predict from source the result was a properly-functioning copy of predict; secondly, the 'broken' copies could be fixed by putting a predict.tle and predict.db file from a working copy in the ~/.predict directory. It must be something about the routines that create those files for the first time in ~/.predict; however, permissions are an obvious problem because the predict.qth file makes it just fine.
73, Bruce VE9QRP
---------- Original Message ----------- From: "Bruce Robertson" ve9qrp@gmail.com To: "John Heaton" john@manchester.ac.uk Cc: AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:23:58 -0300 Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Predict 2.2.3 for Linux
On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 7:37 AM, John Heaton john@manchester.ac.uk wrote:
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On 16 Mar 2008, at 05:50, Bruce Robertson wrote:
Your Predict is possibly dying for a lack of a TLE file. Point to
one
with the -t command-line parameter. Ensure also that a qth file
is
being created in ~/.predict and that you as user can read it
with,
e.g. 'cat'. I believe predict is supposed to find a tle file in
that
same directory, but I think I've had troubles with that option.
Predict will run without a TLE file - you won't see any predictions
I just double-checked this, and I still find that if there is no tle file and none pointed to with a -t switch, it will die as Kent described below. Namely, it will send you to the new user screen and then exit when the info is entered. (Unfortunately, it exits with the terminal in a funny state.) In my experience, it does this on a fresh install with apt-get on Ubuntu, or with a build install (using root). This is a frustrating loop for the user, since he or she can reasonably expect that the data is entered after the first attempt, and furthermore the qth file can be found in the ~/.predict
I've taken a screenshot and posted it at http://heml.mta.ca/Amsat/predict-fail.png
If, however, you use -t to point it to a tle file it can't parse, it will do as you, John, describe above. More specifically, you can select the [P] option from the main menu, but this results in a blank list of satellites from which to choose.
For instance, the following command will produce this effect: brucerob@heml:~$ touch foo brucerob@heml:~$ predict -t foo
I get the exact same effect if I use the documented nasa tle files. For example:
brucerob@heml:~$ wget
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ftp/keps/current/nasa.all
brucerob@heml:~$ predict -t nasa.all
Fails the same as my 'foo' file above. However if I edit out the comments in the file describing the file format so that the first line begins with 'AO-07', predict operates normally.
Finally, make sure that your tle file does not have any comments
at
its top before the actual elements. For instance, the commonly
used
nasa.tle files have a set of comments describing the tle format. Predict dies on these.
Predict ignores data in the TLE file before the TLE data, so if you get your TLE as a meil message you don't need to remove the headers
Perhaps predict is written to ignore the headers of a mail message, but not the comments that appear in the nasa file?
I hope it is understood that I'm documenting this because I like predict and consider it a wonderful arrow in AMSAT's quiver. Indeed, since it might be a potential AMSAT'er's first encounter with pass prediction -- given that it is part of the debian world -- I think we should ensure that it is very easy to use. Furthermore it cross-compiles like a dream: as I've said elsewhere it works identically on a Nokia N800; and another member of this list got it to run on the gumstix platform.
73, Bruce VE9QRP
On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 12:59 AM, Kent R. Frazier
wrote:
I just installed Ubuntu Linux 7.10 and Predict 2.2.3 on my notebook. When I start Predict I get the "new user" screen where I enter the
required
information. After pressing the "enter" key on the last entry I get a command prompt. I can not seem to get to the main menu.
Is anyone using this software that could offer some
suggestions?
Or maybe another alternative to run under Linux?
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