Astronomy Programs

What Astronomy program would you recommend that can be used, for instance,
to predict the time of rising of Venus in Hawaii exactly 2 years from now or
the true ecliptic longitude and geocentric distance of the Sun at any given
instance? I think in college Astronomy courses you would have to write your
own program. In that case which program would you recommend? May have to be
under Linux OS, from what I am reading. I know that 20 years ago most
computations were written in Basic (my speed). What are they using now? All
comments are welcomed and thanks.

Cordially,
west