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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Preferred Linux distro for KStars/Ekos/Indi on an Intel NUC 8i5?

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Hi Bernd,
I recently switched to Mele 3Q www.amazon.de/gp/product/B09XPTKQRW/ref=...01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1, which is much faster than the Raspi. I got it for 250€.

I installed Ubuntu 22.04 and installed Kstars / Indi via the ppa from Jasem (indilib.org/get-indi.html). Always up to date, and so far no problems. I also run FC on it, much faster than Raspi.
1 year 5 months ago #86941

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Hi Juergen,

sounds good, thanks for your reply! Did you set up your Mele 3Q as a 64 bit system? I suppose the ppa has 64 bit binaries as well…
1 year 5 months ago #86944

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yes its 64bit. If you want to buy a Mele 3Q at amazon you have to look several times. Normaly it costs 320€, but at least when I looked every few days it goes down to 260 or even 230 (and there are at least two vendors...

For remote I'm using Anydesk, also tried NoMachine, both worked
1 year 5 months ago #86945

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Good question. I normally would say ubuntu 22, but I was trying it on an i5 intel mini PC and found it to be quite a headache. I had to jump through many hoops to get anything done. vnc has taken way more time than I expected. So far I have stand-alone working but with no access to reboot. Snap apps don't run in the stand-alone vnc either. I managed to get the ubuntu included vino vnc working, but it only works when connected to a monitor, and there was some terrible bug that made a new password everytime it reboots. There is probably some way to work around the hdmi issue in software, but I just ordered a cheap hdmi dummy plug as an easy solution.

So I have to say I'm eager to see if there is a different distro that works well. I've become somewhat fed-up with ubuntu 22... Maybe I'll just try a pure debian distro.
1 year 5 months ago #86948

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I am using Ubuntu 22.04 and have had no particular issues. I use the built in rdp screen sharing and setup to boot directly into the user account and that seems to work quite reliably. I have essentially the same setup on a mele 3Q and a ryzen based Asus PN-51.
1 year 5 months ago #86958

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Thanks guys for your replies! I think I will give Ubuntu 22.04 or Kubuntu 22.04 a try. The NUC will arrive in 1 or 2 days...
1 year 5 months ago #86960

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I run Ubuntu 22.04 on an older 4th generation Intel NUC clone with 8gb of RAM and a SATA SSD in my observatory connected to my desktop. It is on the edge of supporting video, but work really well with conventional astrophotograhy. The Intel® NUC Kit NUC8i5BEH appears to support M.2 NVMe which should work really well for video. My desktop is a newish 10th gen intel with M.2 NVMe.

kstars/EKOS is pretty much bullet proof on Ubuntu - I switch between nightly builds and latest releases, and as time goes on, it seems tthat the nightly builds are mostly stable and work well. I've been on Ubuntu since v16.04 with no issues.



Regards,

jmh
1 year 5 months ago #86963
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:cheer: Great to hear! Indeed the 8i5BEH has a M.2 (PCIe X4) slot and 2 SATA 6 GB/s connectors. Will see what video performance the M.2 SSD in my (pre-owned) NUC will have and possibly upgrade it to a faster SSD if necessary.
1 year 5 months ago #86966

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The only think that bother me about Ubuntu Desktop is that I can't find a quick way to setup a headless box from zero. You always will need a HDMI monitor, keyboard and mouse to configure a system. I love the easiness of setting up an Astroberry / Stellarmate system
1 year 5 months ago #86968

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Hello,

I bought a old Lenovo Thinkcenter M71 2 months ago, I3 intel RAM 4Gb, added a SSD 250Gb and i have installed Linux Mint Mate on it. I have adapt the script from AstroPi3 to my needs and voilà.

Just a couple of issue
  1. No wifi card in the PC. I bought a wifi dongle TP link , but it could not be set in Hotspot mode with the regular dirver from distro. But it works fine for Windows 10, so i thought it is a driver issue. I found the driver on the net and compiled it for Linux, and it runs fine with creating a good Wifi hotspot.

  2. The remote control : i hit a old issue with Remote control, when you have no monitor plugged to the PC. The dummy video driver solution works well but with that, you can't plug and use a monitor. I know there's a way to handle this better with code, but I eventually ended this with buying a dummy video DVIport dongle.
So far, it is better than the Raspberry Pi4 8G, mainly the video remote control. I also can use Siril and other programs directly on this very PC, during Night session. And create/adapt script more for test.
1 year 5 months ago #86969

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I did find it necessary to use an HDMI dongle to boot headless, it was also necessary to set things up with monitor/keyboard/mouse until it was booting direct into an account with screen sharing enabled and wifi. At that point I switched to headless.
1 year 5 months ago #86970

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Really ?
I have not needed any video, mouse and keyboard to start properly my Linux mint session, even when I started to custom the computer

I could use remote control with X11vnc server started at launch with/without monitor plugged to the PC. But when the monitor not plugged, the remote control is very slowwwwwwwww and can't be handy. When I installed and configured the x11 dummy video driver, the remote control went back to normal fast behavior, but it makes the computer stuck with no possibility to plug any real monitor. That's why I bought a dummy video DVIport dongle.

Stellarmate Os and Astroberry can do this without any hardware dongle, so I guess it is possible to handle this dynamically with code. I need to confess I have not spent lots of time on it, but I know it is possible.

At the end, you're right, the easiest way to handle this is a hardware dummy video dongle.
Last edit: 1 year 5 months ago by Val Chevalier.
1 year 5 months ago #86972

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