[Kstars-devel] USNO NOMAD download

[Akarsh Simha]

Quoting Keith Fretz <larkguit at gmail.com>:

> Is there any way to speed up the download so it doesn't take three days on
> broadband?
>

Hi Keith

I've experienced issues downloading this as well, and it is very slow  
without a download accelerator. My download today failed because there  
was too little space in the tmpfs, for instance. So, maybe it is  
better to install this "manually":

Step 1: Download this file, using your favourite jigsaw downloader, or  
whatever
http://download.kde.org/apps/kstars/USNO-NOMAD-1e8-1.0.tar.gz

Step 2: Untar it into the appropriate KDE home directory:
cd ~/.kde/share/apps/kstars
tar xzvf <Path to the Download>/USNO-NOMAD-1e8-1.0.tar.gz

Step 3: Verify that there is a file called USNO-NOMAD-1e8.dat in the directory
ls USNO-NOMAD-1e8.dat, about 2.1GB. If you want to check the MD5 sum,  
mine reads: 15df6409dd875c8223758ccf02e4aae6

Step 4: Restart KStars. If you have debug messages written to the  
console, you should something to the effect of:
kstars(...) DeepStarComponent::openDataFile: Processing   
"USNO-NOMAD-1e8.dat" , HTMesh Level 6
kstars(...) DeepStarComponent::openDataFile:   Sky Mesh Size:  32768
kstars(...) DeepStarComponent::DeepStarComponent: Loaded catalog file   
"USNO-NOMAD-1e8.dat" (hopefully)
somewhere along the startup process.

Ensure that you have Tycho-2 installed before you install NOMAD.

I can't think of a way to indicate this alternative in the "Download  
New Data" tool, since that stuff is standardized. Maybe we could put  
it out on the interwebs and add a link in the description? Any  
suggestions on making this alternative transparent to users will be  
appreciated.

Regards
Akarsh