Predict 2.2.3 for Linux
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?
Thanks,
Kent
i remember something like this
it was trying to write a file and could not due to permissions
it was trying to create the config file
try root and then another user
----- Original Message ----- From: "Kent R. Frazier" k5knt@amsat.org To: "AMSAT-BB" amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 1:59 PM Subject: [SPAM] [amsat-bb] Predict 2.2.3 for Linux
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?
Thanks,
Kent
-- Kent R. Frazier, K5KNT _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
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.
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.
I've ported predict to the Nokia N800 palmtop linux machine. On both it and a recent Ubuntu build, it seems the ncurses formatting can sometimes leave residual effects in the terminal. For instance, when exiting from the condition that Kent describes, I end up with a colored xterm that does not echo my typed commands.
I suppose if anyone wanted to spruce up the Predict source code I would recommend allowing comments within tle files and fixing the terminal on exit.
73, Bruce VE9QRP
On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 12:59 AM, Kent R. Frazier k5knt@amsat.org 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?
Thanks,
Kent
-- Kent R. Frazier, K5KNT _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Thanks Bruce.
I did have the qth file and it was readable, but no TLE file. I downloaded the "nasabare" TLE and after re-reading the man page got it to work. I also had to copy the predict.db file to my ~/.predict directory as it wasn't there either.
I guess it just goes to show that I shouldn't install software just before going to bed. <grin>
73,
Kent
On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 12:50 AM, Bruce Robertson ve9qrp@gmail.com 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.
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.
I've ported predict to the Nokia N800 palmtop linux machine. On both it and a recent Ubuntu build, it seems the ncurses formatting can sometimes leave residual effects in the terminal. For instance, when exiting from the condition that Kent describes, I end up with a colored xterm that does not echo my typed commands.
I suppose if anyone wanted to spruce up the Predict source code I would recommend allowing comments within tle files and fixing the terminal on exit.
73, Bruce VE9QRP
On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 12:59 AM, Kent R. Frazier k5knt@amsat.org 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?
Thanks,
Kent
-- Kent R. Frazier, K5KNT _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the
author.
Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite
program!
Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
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
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
On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 12:59 AM, Kent R. Frazier k5knt@amsat.org 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?
I think your problem is with permissions - The original author of the program had it set up so the you need to be root to compile or install it - but you don't if you just keep the program as a local binary.
On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 7:37 AM, John Heaton john@manchester.ac.uk wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
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 k5knt@amsat.org 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?
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).
Has anyone noticed this using a self-compiled installation?
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
The program is (for some reason) exiting before the .qth file is being written.
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?
It should ignore headers in any TLE file used to update its database. However, it expects its .tle data file to be clean.
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.
Understood.
Normally, PREDICT will install an old .tle file that comes bundled with PREDICT's source code under a new user's directory the first time the program is run. The user is then encouraged to update the Keps using any of PREDICT's TLE file updating mechanisms before operating the program.
PREDICT was last released almost 2 years ago. The problem you describe appears to be fairly new. Obviously something has changed in the world to cause this to occur, and it isn't PREDICT. ;-)
73, Bruce VE9QRP
73, de John, KD2BD
Visit John on the Web at:
http://kd2bd.ham.org/ . . . .
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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
---------- 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:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
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 k5knt@amsat.org 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?
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
------- End of Original Message -------
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:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
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 k5knt@amsat.org 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?
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
------- End of Original Message -------
participants (6)
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Andrew Rich -
Bruce Robertson -
John Heaton -
John Magliacane -
Kent R. Frazier -
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