Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Sun, 06/28/2020 - 03:23
This could go on the new equipment and instrumentation page, but this is very EB-centric.
I will buy a computer (refurbished) in order to transition to Linux. Part of the motivation is to learn Phoebe 2.2 (Linux only, command line does not put me off.). Given the likely amount of data crunching, I seek advice.
- Workstation or PC ??
- Will an older generation i5 or i7 processor do the job? How old? Or do I need the workstation power of a Xeon?
- Ram requirements? (I assume 8 GB).
I appreciate any advice. I could not find any advice on the Phoebe Web site, I may have missed it.
Ed
Hi,
you can use + 10 years old computers for Linux. Xfce Desktop is for older pc s.
I use 10 - 15 year old pc with 3 GB Ram for Muniwin. I do not know phoebe, maybe look at the project site for ram recomendations.
Wbea
Hey Ed,
PHOEBE is very near and dear to my heart. I am on the development team (though I play a very minor role). As for phoebe. It installs better on linux, but you can install it on windows (through WSL) or mac. As to the type of computer you want, this very much depends. Phoebe itself does not require much from your system. However, the simulations can be quite computationally intensive and the time to complete them can be significant. If you want to use it for fitting with mcmc or other samplers (tens of thousands of iterations), then you would likely need to pass your job off to a cluster to handle the load. Since a server level computer is likely not something you would want to invest in (I definitely don't), then a typical PC would be fine for non-fitting use. I use it on lenovo 720 and a macbook pro with no issues, both of which are 3-4 years old. As for ram requirements, there aren't any specifically but I wouldn't go below 8gb. (I always go with the max I can get, but I like to mutl-task). I will also let you know that the phoebe 2.3 release will almost certainly be out this summer and it will have fitting support as well as a ui.
Thanks,
Bert Pablo,
Staff Astronomer, AAVSO
Hi Bert
I was inspired by your recent webinar talk to investigate Phoebe... However, I cant seem to see the web page... I have tried Explorer and MS Edge. Is it down for maintenance?
Cheers
Kevin
Hey Kevin,
As best i can tell the site is still up.
http://phoebe-project.org/
Maybe there was a mistake in the previous link?
Thanks,
Bert
On my computer (Mac OS X 10.14.5, Safari 12.1.1), that page comes up blank. (No 404 error or anything, just blank.)
Same on a Win7 machine using Explorer, and on a Linux machine running Firefox.
g.
Yes that was my experience.... blank page no error.
Both in Firefox and MS Edge on a Win10 machine
Kevin
The link works. I am running Ubuntu on an ASIS computer. Had to install it myself and windows 10 makes it difficult. The processor Intel® Core™ i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz × 4 ; I have 7.7 GB memory and a 976 GD hd. Hoe that ths helps with purcahse of a computer.
Hey All,
I am unable to check explorer (which is deprecated is it the same on edge). However, you are right on safari it is blank. I don't know why this is the case, but I'm looking into it. I know it works in chrome and opera, if you have those.
Thanks,
Bert Pablo
Staff Astronomer, AAVSO
Hi
If it's any help, the address bar notes this page is not secure, so it looks like we would have to relax some security to see it. On my iPad it loads but also notes its not secure
Kevin
Hi, Bert,
I wonder if you could give me some advice on a prolem I am having with Phoebe Legacy. I am running it on a brand new Windows 10 machine. Phoebe installed fine, started up and behaved just as the user manual and tutorial described. It read in a data file and plotted it beautifully. Here's the problem: I can't reproduce that. The plot window stays grey. Phoebe still reads the data file and displays some of the values at the top of the file, but it won't plot any more. Can you think of what I might be doing wrong?
Thanks,
Glenn
Glenn:
My own experience with Phoebe Legacy running in Windows 10 was not pretty. I found Phoebe to be fairly unpredictable. Sometimes it would model well and even plot; other times (same star, same data) it would simply lock up. I ended up using VirtualBox to install a Ubuntu virtual Linux onto the Windows 10 machine, and then loaded (and built) Phoebe Legacy from source in the Linux environment. Worked like a champ, much more reliable, and I never even thought about going back to the native Windows environment.
- Mark
Hello All,
I talked with the site maintainer. The reason why it won't load on safari is because safari doesn't allow certain regex statements (which are the industry standard). This has been fixed. I have no internet explorer to test on but hopefully it works there now as well. Thanks for letting us know.
Thanks,
Bert Pablo
Staff Astronomer, AAVSO
Now works on my mac/safari, win7/explorer, and linux/firefox. Thank you!
Hooragh! now available in Windows 10 too.. (Firefox)