Hi all,
The mentors are helping me get my packages uploaded, so I'm looking for
more things to package. My background is computational astrophysics so
there are about a dozen packages in theoretical astrophysics that I'm
going to package for Mageia once it I get set up. However, I'm
interested in trying to make Mageia a strong platform for astronomy.
One thing about linux is that it unites amateur and professional
communities in a way that isn't possible before. People doing backyard
experiments can use image processing tools that are available to
professional astronomers, and part of what I'd like to do is to make
those tools more accessible.
I have a background in computational astrophysics, so I know what
packages need to be added in that area. However, I have little
background in observational astronomy (particularly amateur astronomy)
and also very little background in astronomy education (particularly
k-12). So I don't know what packages need to be packaged in that area.
For example, there are about a dozen projects on telescope control out
there, but I need some feedback from someone who is actually trying to
run amateur astronomy experiments so know which one I should change to
an RPM. I'm going to start reaching out so some contacts I have in the
astronomy community, but before I do that, I'd like to see if there are
any astronomers (either amateur or professional) here on this list.
One other thing is that Mageia is particularly well set up to work as
platform for scientific computing. Astronomers want to do astronomy and
not system administration, so this means that you have to have
easy-to-use tools to set up the system, and distributions that are
focused toward computer geeks don't work. At the same time, both
professional and amateur astronomers don't work in a corporate business
environment, which means that enterprise distributions also aren't set
up for scientific computing. Mageia has I think the right structure for
becoming the linux distribution of choice for astronomy.
