I’m writing this post from within the Kubuntu operating system. Kubuntu is a variant of Ubuntu, which is a variant of Linix. I decided on Kubuntu because I wanted to see whether PixInsight is any faster on Kubuntu on the same hardware.
Getting Kubuntu installed is straight-forward: the installer handles all of the details of setting up the system for you – you just answer a few questions and then let it run for about an hour.
I chose to run Kubuntu on a USB drive instead of dual-booting between Windows and Kubuntu. I just insert my USB drive that has Kubuntu on it, restart, and boot right into Kubuntu. I went with this approach because I didn’t want to change my Windows installation which has been working reliably for years.
After I got Kubuntu installed and running, I installed PixInsight and started processing some images I had previously processed under Windows. I can say for certain that PixInsight is noticeably faster under Kubuntu. This is definitely a good way to get more out of your hardware.
PixInsight runs under various flavors of Linux including Kubuntu, FreeBSD and GNOME 3; they do recommend the KDE Plasma desktop environment which is why I went with Kubuntu.
