StarTrek OS

[wove]

I am not a Trekie, but today I tripped across Cris Titus' Star Trek OS. It had a strange looking interface, that looked rather amusing. I gather it is from the series, but I was not aware that "Star Trek" computers had an interface.

Well anyway he wanted $5 for the disk images for both a virtual machine and for installing to a hard drive. So I paid the $5 and downloaded the images. I could not make the VM image work in Gnome Boxes, but Virtual Box set it up automatically by using the .ova image.

It is based on Debian. It runs fine in a VM with a couple cores and 4GB or RAM. It is pretty minimal, you can install whatever you want via apt. It is an odd interface to say the least. If they ever showed interaction with the interface in the series, I was not paying attention and have no clue how it works. It does launch software quickly.

In the end $5 is not a bad price to pay for a couple afternoons of entertainment.

[crosscourt]

The OS in the tv show was first referred to in Next Generation as LCARS and many people have tried to actually emulate the tv version for years. Titus version is very tame and something many may enjoy playing with.

[wove]

Yes it is the Star Trek OS with the LCARS interface. I was able to get it going in Gnome Boxes. It turns out the .ova file is a tar file in disguise and after extraction one finds a vmkd image which can be opened directly in Gnome Boxes. Virt Manager would open it directly as well.

The LCARS interface is a github project <https://github.com/joernweissenborn/lcars> put together mostly in python. It can be installed on most any base. Chris Titus packaged it up to run in a VM or on real metal. It is working fine for me with the exception of the networking. I have to look into the config files to see what that involves. According to the VM config networking should be up and running, but it is not.

It works alright. I do like that everything lands in its own big window. There does seem to be lots of fluff at the top, that I have no idea what it means. Maybe I will have to track down a Trekie to tell me what that stuff is. I always thought Star Trek computers used voice commands. Turns out they are not as sharp as Hey Google/Alexa/Siri. Just maybe 2389 is just not all it is cracked up to be

[crosscourt]

Most interactions with LCARS were done by manual interface but certainly in some circumstances queries or research or necessary quick commands would be handled by voice commands. The Captains office only had a terminal so voice command was more common but all the stations on the bridge primarily used manual interface.