Scientific and astronomy extensions

[bob839]

Hello there!
TinyCore 5.2 is wonderful distro and it works flawlessly on my HP T5520 ThinClient terminal (with default X-server GUI).

I am wondering whether there are any scientific apps for math and astronomy?

[Rich]

Hi bob839
I don't see anything for 5.x, but 4.x has  celestia.tcz  available. What kind of math apps are you looking for?

[bob839]

Hi Rich
Thank you for your reply. Celestia is too demanding on hardware side so I was rather thinking of planetarium software similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyglobe (I have SkyGlobe for DOS, but for now I don't see any easy way (for me at least) to make DOSBox working under TC 5.x (all the topics I have read here are more or less related to compiling the source) and switching between TC OS and DR-DOS whenever I need to look at the sky is not the most efficient way to make things done )

As for math apps, something similar to FreeMat in functionality with gnuplot on board would satisfy me most. I don't mind for using CLI math apps too.
Generally, math functions I am most interested in are: trigonometry, complex numbers, sums, matrices and equation solving, calculus. I would be also more than happy to have precision better than that of my calculator (15 numbers).

[bmarkus]

This may help to find out what is available on Linux

http://www.distroastro.org/

[Rich]

Hi bob839
Dosbox would need to be recompiled since it depends on libpng12. However, all its dependencies are present in the 5.x
repository except  sdl-sound.tcz, but its dependencies are also present there.

Math: Maybe gnumeric would be of some use?

[bob839]

Thank you bmarkus for the link. Indeed, that distro has many great astronomy programs included. Would it be difficult or time consuming for someone knowledgeable to port some of them to TinyCore (especially Cartes du Ciel and SkyGlobe)?

Thanks, Rich, for suggesting gnumeric, but it is quite heavy for my hardware that's one thing and it needs a lot of dependencies and I try to keep my system as simple and lightweight as possible. Maybe there are some other spreadsheets (including CLI ones like sc Spreadsheet Calculator) compatible with 5.x?

Or are there any plans to port/recompile DosBox for current TinyCore release? It would make a lot of things easier (for example - I could use SkyGlobe as well as some of DOS spreadsheets and math programs with plotting capabilities).

[bmarkus]

You can try 8086tiny.tcz from the repo.

[bob839]

Thank you, bmarkus for your suggestion, but there is no such file in 5.x repo

Anyway, I have solved some of my problems. And I found one particular astronomy software I would like to use on TinyCore.

1) My math problem is solved by bc and I wrote (I will post the code later) simple ash script to use bc for math with given precision and expression as parameters (for me it's more efficient than entering bc and running commands inside it). I will try to find some library for other math tasks I am interested in.

2) I would love to run Xplns astronomy planetarium software on TinyCore - I have no idea how to recompile stuff, so is there any chance that someone kind would possibly do a TC 5.x port of that soft?

3) My questions about sc and DosBox are still valid.

[bmarkus]

Thank you, bmarkus for your suggestion, but there is no such file in 5.x repo

It is there. Either you are using a mirror or your local cache is not updated.

[Juanito]

I would love to run Xplns astronomy planetarium software on TinyCore - I have no idea how to recompile stuff, ...

If you could write the ash script to use bc, you can certainly compile stuff - why not read the extension making section of the wiki and give it a go - the forum users would be happy to help with any problems you might have.

[bob839]

Thanks, bmarkus - I was using a mirror and that was why I didn't have it in app browser. I have installed it and tested, but on my machine it worked so slow, that even 'help' command took ages to load and browse, so I can only imagine how bad things would be if I tried to run SkyGlobe So DOSBox option is also a no-no, because my machine is too slow for it to emulate DOS properly.

So, the only chance is to make Xplns port to TC 5.x... but I can't do this myself. Really, Juanito. Yes, I can write some simple scripts like this to make use of bc in a more efficient way for me, but

Code: [Select]

#!/bin/ash
echo "scale=$1;$2" | bc

is not something even close to make port of Xplns to TC distro for me I have read the extension making page on wiki, but I was unable to make head or tail of that. I wasn't even able to compile a hello.cpp (hello world code in C++) with gcc and I know that this code is correct - I was fiddling with C++ and TurboPascal on WIN and DOS years ago, but I have no experience under Linux. I have attached screenshot with error output.

[curaga]

You wrote a C++ app but called a C compiler (gcc). Use a C++ compiler instead (g++)

[bob839]

I just have used g++, but I got the same error output

[curaga]

Make sure you have installed compiletc.tcz.

[bob839]

Okay, now I can compile things Thank you, curaga!
Could you possibly advise me which file shall I download from: http://www.astroarts.com/products/xplns/download.html so I can try to recompile it for TC 5.2?