Many years ago, I was the goto guy for Windows. Waded deep into system.ini, win.ini, and knew the registry like the back of my hand. But it gradually got ridiculously complicated, harder to find advanced features, and stupid slow to cold boot. So I switched to Chromebook and have never looked back.
Until OpenRocket. Had to use an old HP laptop to be able to run it. But, wait... There is a Linux version of OpenRocket. So I enabled Linux on my Chromebook (a simple one-click in settings, although it takes a while to initially set up), loaded OpenRocket, and away I go.
The interface is a bit different in appearance than the Windows version, and - for some reason - the font is kind of difficult to read. It also suffers much more from the horizontally oriented screen of most Chromebooks than on other computers. Seems OpenRocket is being developed on screens with a different height vs width ratio, not working well with short but wide screens. This is most apparent in the motor selection tab, where the list of selected motors is extremely squished. I played with screen resolution settings and have found one that is usable.
Sharing .ork files with the HP laptop is a bit clunky. Could be done with a USB nerd stick, but I'm too lazy to go buy one. So I'm uploading the Windows .ork files to Google Drive, then downloading them to the Linux folder on the Chromebook.
Anyway, my reason for doing this is to have a small computer with long battery life that I can bring to launches to do last minute sims if I end up changing anything.
If anyone is interested, I can give a bit more detail on what is involved. It's really very simple. Mostly it requires Chromebooks made after 2019, or a select few from before. The older compatible ones are listed on a Google help page.
Hans.
edit: If you are a bit apprehensive about doing this, fear not! The same entry in Settings to enable Linux will turn it off. I tried doing this with an older Chromebook that was not on the approved list. The entry in Settings was there, I turned it on, installed OpenRocket, and ..... got tons of error messages everywhere. Went back into Settings, turned it off, and there is no trace that the Linux environment was ever there. The Linux folder in Files was gone, along with everything in it (including the OpenRocket install).
Until OpenRocket. Had to use an old HP laptop to be able to run it. But, wait... There is a Linux version of OpenRocket. So I enabled Linux on my Chromebook (a simple one-click in settings, although it takes a while to initially set up), loaded OpenRocket, and away I go.
The interface is a bit different in appearance than the Windows version, and - for some reason - the font is kind of difficult to read. It also suffers much more from the horizontally oriented screen of most Chromebooks than on other computers. Seems OpenRocket is being developed on screens with a different height vs width ratio, not working well with short but wide screens. This is most apparent in the motor selection tab, where the list of selected motors is extremely squished. I played with screen resolution settings and have found one that is usable.
Sharing .ork files with the HP laptop is a bit clunky. Could be done with a USB nerd stick, but I'm too lazy to go buy one. So I'm uploading the Windows .ork files to Google Drive, then downloading them to the Linux folder on the Chromebook.
Anyway, my reason for doing this is to have a small computer with long battery life that I can bring to launches to do last minute sims if I end up changing anything.
If anyone is interested, I can give a bit more detail on what is involved. It's really very simple. Mostly it requires Chromebooks made after 2019, or a select few from before. The older compatible ones are listed on a Google help page.
Hans.
edit: If you are a bit apprehensive about doing this, fear not! The same entry in Settings to enable Linux will turn it off. I tried doing this with an older Chromebook that was not on the approved list. The entry in Settings was there, I turned it on, installed OpenRocket, and ..... got tons of error messages everywhere. Went back into Settings, turned it off, and there is no trace that the Linux environment was ever there. The Linux folder in Files was gone, along with everything in it (including the OpenRocket install).
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