Astrolog Reinstalled

During my stay in Melbourne, with only my Macbook Air, I had no access to Astrolog, my go-to software tool for astrological analysis. Let's recall that the usual Windows emulation software doesn't work on the new Silicon Macs. Having returned to home base, I've been able to install Astrolog on my old 2013 Macbook Pro using Bottles.

The installation of Bottles was quite painless using the Application Manager. I created a "bottle" for 

Astrolog and then my downloaded astrolog.exe was able to be installed. A little tweaking of the program for font sizes and colours and I was away. However, it still nagged me as to why I couldn't set up Astrolog on my Macbook Air. I consulted Gemini.

After some to and fro, it recommended Whisky at https://getwhisky.app/. The opening page contains the warning that "Whisky is no longer actively maintained. Apps and games may break at any time". That was OK as I really only needed it to do one thing and that is to run Astrolog. Whisky seems to be a version of Bottles that has been modified to run on MacOS. As before, I set up a "bottle" and installed Astrolog. Now it runs on my Macbook Air. 

One program I had with the Astrolog running on my Linux distributions was the tiny size of the drop-down menu. There was no way I found to modify this. However, on the Mac the menu is normal size so I'm quite pleased. Fingers crossed that I don't have any further problems.

Macbook Air M1

Having acquired a Macbook Air M1 for my birthday, I set about getting Astrolog to run on it under Wine. I succeeded under Linux but it's proving frustrating using the Macintosh operating system running on the newer non-Intel chip. I've had Astrolog running quite happily on my 2013 Macbook Pro when the Mac OS was installed. The error message when trying to get WINE to run the astrolog.exe mentions "bad CPU type" so the newer CPU seems to be the problem.

There is a Macintosh version but it only seems to work in the terminal and produces output as shown in Figure 1. As the documentation says:

The main difference from the Windows version is that it does not offer a Graphical User Interface, and so you will not find a mouse-driven menu system or dialog interface. However, it offers just about everything else. You can even draw temporary squiggles/annotations with your mouse ona chart displayed in X11.

This is clearly of limited use and takes me back to the bad old days of the late 1980s using MS-DOS on a 286 PC.

Figure 1

Of course I could install Virtual Box and run astrolog.exe under Windows proper but it's a lot of trouble to go to for just one program so it's a problem that I'll have to keep working on. Here is what Google's Gemini had to say about the problem when I asked the question:

I have installed WINE on my Macbook Air but it will not run astrolog.exe. I keep getting an error message. Here is what it says. If you can understand it, you're a better man than me (I then copied the entire error message).

The error message you provided indicates an issue with running astrolog.exe using Wine on your Apple Macbook Air with M1 chip. Here's a breakdown of the error and potential solutions:

Understanding the Error: 

"Bad CPU type in executable": This is the core issue. Wine expects a program compiled for a specific CPU architecture (likely x86 for traditional computers). However, your Macbook Air uses an M1 chip with ARM architecture, which is different. Astrolog.exe is likely compiled for x86 and incompatible with your Mac's CPU.

Why Wine Doesn't Work with M1 Macs (for now):

Wine typically translates instructions from Windows programs to work on the underlying system's architecture. However, M1 chips are a significant departure from Intel x86 architecture, and full compatibility with Wine is still under development.

Possible Solutions (Limited)

There are unfortunately no guaranteed solutions to run astrolog.exe directly on your M1 Mac with Wine at this time. Here are some possibilities to consider, but keep in mind their limitations:

Alternative Software: Explore if there are alternative astrology software programs that are native to macOS or have web-based versions.

Crossover (Paid Software): Crossover is a commercial alternative to Wine that attempts to run Windows applications on macOS. It might have better compatibility with M1 Macs than the free Wine version, but there's no guarantee it will work with astrolog.exe specifically.

Virtualization with Windows on ARM (Experimental): There are ongoing efforts to run Windows on ARM processors through virtualization. While Microsoft does offer a limited preview of Windows 11 for ARM on compatible devices, it's still in development and might not be suitable for everyday use yet.

Recommendation:

Since Wine isn't a reliable option for astrolog.exe on your M1 Mac at this point, investigating alternative software or waiting for potential future compatibility improvements in Wine or virtualization solutions might be the best course of action.

Of course, there's paid astrology software for the Mac but I've gotten used to using Astrolog for free over many years and it does all I need it to do. 

Charging Issues

It's been a while since my last post but I was out of town for quite some time and did not take my laptop with me. On return however, I noticed that charging cable for my beloved MacBook Pro 2013 was playing up again. After the original, I've replaced the 60W charger twice and the current one is proving troublesome with the little green light not always lighting up unless it's tweaked.

I've ordered and received a new one which I'll keep in reserve as the current one is not too annoying just yet. It will fail eventually of course. It's worth forking out for new chargers as my laptop with Mint LInux installed is running just fine and doing everything that I want it to do. Likewise my Raspberry Pi is fully operational. The advantages of USB C charging are obvious but of course my old laptop does not have such a port and so I'm stuck. The quality of the chargers I'm buying is clearly suspect but they're cheap and work for a while at least. 

Speaking of my Raspberry Pi, I've discovered that I can listen to music via headphone jack to a USB C and then to USB 3.1 as shown in Figure 1. It's a necessary workaround because I can't get Bluetooth to function and there is no headphone jack, for some mysterious reason. Previously I'd been using the headphone jack on a USB C hub but I've given that to my granddaughter so I had to come up with a workaround.

Figure 1

I still can't get WINE to run and that's something that I'll have to keep working on if I ever want to get my astrology program, Astrolog, to work again.

Twister OS

The problem with WINE running on a 64-bit operating system, such as I have installed on my Raspberry Pi 400, is that it cannot run 32-bit software like Astrolog without additional software. I successfully installed WINE on my Raspberry Pi OS, or so I thought, but soon discovered there were still many more steps required before I could ever hope to run Astrolog.

Twister OS is 32-bit and seems to include WINE out of the box, so I'm keen to test it out on the Raspberry Pi. All I need is another SD card and was curious to know how much the card currently in my Pi cost. It is a 16GB SanDisk Ultra and can be bought online for under Rp40,000 or about A$4. Not a huge expense!

If I buy several then I can run a variety of operating systems including Ubuntu, UbuntuMate, Twister and Manjaro. The only problem is that the cards are so tiny, it would be easy to misplace them. There is a version designed especially for the Raspberry Pi 4.

I will attempt to install it tomorrow if I can acquire an SD card from the corner shop. It seems that BerryBoot OS will allow me to include multiple operating systems on a single SD card.

As this site explains:

For people short on SD cards: Berryboot is a simple boot selection screen for ARM computers like the Raspberry Pi, that allows you to put multiple Linux distributions on a single SD card. In addition it allows you to put the operating system files on an external USB hard drive instead of on the SD card itself.

ADDENDUM:

You need to accept that anything you try in Linux will fail on the first attempt and probably the second and may ultimately fail completely. Such was the case with the much hyped Berryboot. Even though I managed to get it running on an SD card, it would not display the operating system that I wanted, namely Twister. So, useless.

What I did was download the image from the Twister website and then I used Balena Etcher to install it on a newly acquired 16GB SD card. My Raspberry Pi 400 booted into the Twister OS without any problems. My initial reaction to this new operating system was quite positive. Google Chrome came pre-installed and, after some tinkering, I managed to pipe good quality music to my Bluetooth earbuds. Following a reboot however, I could not get any sound out of either wired or unwired earbuds. Finally, the mouse froze up and I gave up. I'm back to the Raspberry Pi operating system. 

I really don't want to waste time tinkering with other operating systems just for the sake of it. I want an OS that works. On my laptop, I've got that now with Linux Mint and I'm sticking to it. With the Raspberry Pi, I'll be sticking to its native operating system. That's it. For now.

Ubuntu Upgrade

Maybe it was changing from the main server to an Indonesian server that finally enabled me to begin the upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04 to 21.10. Figure 1 shows the early stages of the upgrade process. Let's hope that this upgrade will resolve some of my problems but knowing Ubuntu I'll probably a whole new set of problems. In terms of hardware, my only persistent issue is that the webcam on my 2013 MacBook Pro isn't functioning. Sporadically however, as I've mentioned in previous posts, the mouse, trackpad and keyboard all freeze. Software-wise, there are many issues: few installations proceed smoothly but I would have to single out WINE and Flatpak as being especially troublesome.

Figure 1

After a few hiccups, Ubuntu 21.10 has been installed and so far so good. Flatpak, Stacer, Calibre, Wine and Astrolog have all been successfully installed. I must say that Flatpak, once it's up and running, makes software installation very easy. You need to remember however, to log out and then log back in again in order to see the programs that you've installed. It took me a while to realise that.

I've also managed to install SageMath which I'm quite happy about. Figure 2 shows a screenshot of my first use of it. However, just as I was getting excited, the whole system froze again and I had to reboot. I suspect the problem may arise when I have too many tabs open. The poor old laptop's fan was working hard and I had many tabs open when disaster struck. I need to close down tabs and applications that I'm not using. The freeze may be the result of overheating but I need to investigate further.

Figure 2

I should keep a log of these freezes in an effort to discern any patterns.

Installing Calibre and Other Software on Ubuntu

At long last, I've managed to get Calibre working under Ubuntu 20.04 on my 2013 Mac Book Pro. I just followed the recommended procedure using the terminal as outlined on the Calibre website:

sudo -v && wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin

I'm sure I tried this before but perhaps whatever bug was stopping Calibre from working before has now been fixed. Calibre and the Windows-based Astrolog were the two programs that I really wanted to get working under Ubuntu and now I've succeeded.

My VPN is also working and so the laptop is fully functional again from my perspective. There's nothing that I was doing under the Mac OS that I can't now do in Ubuntu. On the general topic of software installation, I watched an interesting YouTube video titled Flatpak Tutorial - Setting up Flatpak and installing Packages:

The author references the FLATPAK website that explains how to install the software on the various Linux distributions and FLATHUB that lists the software available for installation once FLATPAK has been installed. I managed to install it on my granddaughter's HP Pavilion x360 so far attempts to install it on my 2013 Mac Book have failed. I'll keep trying. Nothing of course is ever easy or straightforward with Linux.

There's no urgency as the normal software installation works fine. I've just installed Stellarium and TexStudio and TexMaker without any issues.

The Price of Mainstream Divergence

Having replaced the Mac OS on my Mac Book with OS Chrome Flex and Windows 10 on my granddaughter's HP Pavilion x360 with Ubuntu 20.04, the consequences are now being felt but it's OK, I'm retired and have plenty of time to deal with these problems. For a working person, who needs his or her laptop to be fully functional so as to maintain productivity, I wouldn't recommend my course of action.

On Ubuntu, I decided to install Calibre that I use to organise my collection of ebooks. However, once installed it wouldn't launch. Apparently, there are problems getting Calibre to run on the latest version of Ubuntu.

To add to my frustrations, I wrote in my Astrology blog about a similar problem:

... the Astrolog website links to openastro.org that has an Ubuntu repository that I'm keen to test out. Figure 1 shows a screenshot.

Figure 1

Unfortunately, I get the following error message:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:

openastro.org : Depends :  imagemagick

E: unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Given that Ubuntu is a far more mature OS than the beta Chrome OS Flex, these failures are disappointing. 

Meanwhile the problems with the latter OS are many. The webcam doesn't work on my Mac Book and the touchpad is all but useless. I had to resort to using a mouse again, a practice that I abandoned over a decade ago. Fortunately the mouse works fine unless I connect an external monitor in which case the mouse becomes unstable.

While I seem to have successfully installed the Linux development environment in Chrome OS Flex, I get the following error message when opening the terminal:

Starting the virtual machine Error starting penguin container: 5

Launching vmshell failed: Error starting crostini for terminal: 5

This of course means that no installations of Linux applications are possible. None of these things are game changers but there's also the temptation to go out and buy the M2 Mac Book Air when it comes out later this year and have all these frustrations disappear.

On the positive side, it's interesting with Chrome OS Flex to be actively involved in the ongoing development and testing of the operating system.