Category Archives: Computing

Linux Mint 19 on an HP EliteDesk 800 G1 Mini

Posted on August 12, 2019 by james

I picked up a couple of these second-hand recently, to use in the observatory. They came with Windows 10 installed, but I don’t care about that. I want to run Linux Mint on them. I tried a couple of times … Continue reading →

Posted in Astro Equipment, Computing, Linux | Tagged , | 3 Comments

The joy of libgphoto2

Posted on July 23, 2019 by james

Whilst I was on holiday I took a bit of a leap into the unknown and decided I’d try to implement support for DSLRs in the camera library I’ve written for oacapture and related applications, the intent being to use … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Computing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Ubuntu 64-bit ARM beta missing package niggles

Posted on January 12, 2019 by james

This week I downloaded the Ubuntu 64-bit ARM beta image to try out (and so I could test building oacapture against the 64-bit ARM environment). It booted neatly, but I got a bit stuck when I tried to install the … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, Linux, Raspberry Pi | Leave a comment

DIY egg incubator and hatcher

Posted on December 19, 2018 by james

For some time now I’ve been idly contemplating the possibility of making my own incubator and hatcher for (primarily) chicken eggs as I’ve never been completely happy with the performance of my commercially-produced ones. What I’m thinking of for the … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Printing, Chickens, Projects, Raspberry Pi, Smallholding | Leave a comment

Logitech Marble Mouse on Ubuntu 18.04 and Mint 19

Posted on August 20, 2018 by james

I love my Logitech Marble Mouse. So much in fact that I have several spares in case my current one dies. It’s always been a little niggly to get to work with Linux though. Every few releases something changes and … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, Linux | Tagged | 2 Comments

Can the leopard change its spots?

Posted on June 5, 2018 by james

I read the news of Microsoft’s intended purchase of Github (which I use for a number of projects) with a certain amount of trepidation. I’ve been around long enough to remember Gates and Ballmer trying to stick the knife into … Continue reading →

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Blast from the past…

Posted on June 5, 2018 by james

Many years back I wrote a BBC Micro emulator for Linux. I still have the source kicking around somewhere. Perhaps I’ll try to get it up and running again if I have time. Meanwhile, here are some screenshots. How many … Continue reading →

Posted in BBC Micro, Computing, Projects | Leave a comment

In the home straight for the next oacapture release

Posted on October 21, 2017 by james

It’s taken somewhat longer than planned for various reasons, but I’m finally in the final stages of putting together the next release (v1.2.0) of oacapture. I think I’ve killed off about eighty issues on github since the last release (though … Continue reading →

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Apple iHal 9000

Posted on June 6, 2017 by james

I’ve just seen the piece about the launch of the HomePod on the BBC News site. Searching the net it appears that I’m not the only person who was immediately struck by the similarity to our favourite psychopathic artificial brain. … Continue reading →

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OSX compile problem understood

Posted on April 28, 2017 by james

Understood, but no solution is in sight unfortunately. It turns out that configure doesn’t play nicely with -Werror and whilst my code still compiles and works on Linux when compiled that way it’s mostly luck. OSX does not (in my … Continue reading →

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