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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Trying to start with ekos etc on Raspberry pi - thwarted at evert turn -advice?

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I have a mount - a vixen GP which I upgraded with a synscan upgrade kit. I have put the pass through firmware into the hand controller.
I have a Canon EOS Ra camera, and initially I am using with a canon 400mm lens while I get the software working.
If you have any idea about how I might make this work, I'll try (almost) anything!
The story so far
  1. Started with Astroberry - mount works OK, but camera is not supported by the installed version of libraw (it is a very old version). Having searched around a few people had looked into updating libraw, but the interface has changed and the knock on effects became too complex, so this approach does not seem viable.
  2. Tried with ubuntu install (more up to date version than astroberry build), but end up in the same place as the only arm repos are the same ones backing astroberry
  3. installed indi / kstars on my Fedora laptop (It has to be Fedora as debian etc. do not have the keyboard and other drivers I need). At least the camera is now supported! mount OK and basic camera working, however any attempt to plate solve (with kstars own or with external software) crashes kstars completely and there is nothing useful in any log file.
  4. Ran kstars from shell - kstars is crashing on a segfault immediately after reporting plate has solved. Pretty certain it isn't a resource problem as laptop has 16Gb ram and a ryzen 5800h cpu
  5. Thought I would try driving indi from python to see if I could find where the problem is, but can't install the python wrapper as there is a version conflict. Known unresolved bug
  6. Resurected old laptop and built ubuntu 20.04 on it as ubuntu seems to be the distro with best support on the indi website. Installed OK, but kstars / ekos come up with no icons making it impossible to use (well certainly for a noob)
  7. Found a fix for the icons problem, but then just ran into the segfault problem again
  8. Decided to try just running indiserver on raspberry pi and eqmodgui on my laptop (there doesn't appear to be an arm version built and with all the old baselines and versioning problems I'd already experienced, I didn't fancy trying a source build. But eqmodgui tries to open the connection to the server (the server sees the connect, then eqmodgui just sits there and eventually says failed to connect and gives up.
  9. Oh somewhere along the way I tried ccdciel as well, but that clearly needs way more resource than a 4Gb Raspberry pi has, cos it is mind numbingly slow to respond to any user input
No idea what I can do now other than find an old windows laptop and try ASCOM based software.
Or put back the standard firmware into the synscan handset and do it like it's 1990 again.
2 years 3 days ago #81736

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The best option in my opinion would be an Ubuntu based installation since you get the KStars and INDI PPA. I am confused as to what you mean by this "the only arm repos are the same ones backing astroberry". I wouldn't usually recommend Fedora, since I don't think the KStars and INDI there are as up to date, but maybe I am incorrect about this because of my better familiarity with ubuntu. I would definitely bet that if you are getting a crash right away with plate solving that you probably have a version mismatch with KStars and StellarSolver. You could try updating each of those to the latest versions (KStars 3.5.8 and StellarSolver 2.2) and it should get rid of that problem.

If you are interested, I had made several scripts to get everything all set up on a variety of systems several years ago that many have used successfully github.com/rlancaste/AstroPi3. They do require more work than StellarMate or Astroberry, but it is better than starting from scratch yourself. You can edit the script to add things or remove features you don't want or need.
2 years 3 days ago #81737

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Hi Iain,

Take a look at the video tutorials on Chris Kovac's You Tube channel. They will take you through step by step in great details how to set up a Raspberry Pi to run KStars/EKOS/indi under ubuntu Mate. This includes setting up VNC for remote control from PC or laptop.
www.youtube.com/channel/UCjATVQDx-wC4I39ac0OFQ4Q

Good luck, but don't give up this is a great platform for RPi.

Mike
2 years 3 days ago #81747

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Some distractions in the meantime, but I watched Chris Kovac's video and had a look at Rob's repo. I decided to try Chris' approach and built a new image, but ended up with the same problem - it is unable to process raw files from my camera.

I decided to try StellarMate as it is basically a curated and very up to date build of the same parts, with added extras. That worked with my camera "out of the box" (I only bought the OS and installed onto current pi4).

So I now have a properly working system and am getting everything set up.
1 year 9 months ago #83648

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Glad to hear you have it working and Stellarmate has good support if you have any problems in the future. Just need some clear skies now!

Mike
The following user(s) said Thank You: Iain
1 year 9 months ago #83649

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