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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Astroberry Server

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Replied by Paul Stansfield on topic Astroberry Server

Hi Radek,

Thanks - but the scaling only works through a web browser, I'm using a VNC viewer on the tablet. Anyway, I've made some more tweaks to /boot/config.txt and I've had some success. I don't know why it wasn't working before, but thanks for your help!

Thanks again!

Paul
6 years 3 weeks ago #23808
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Hello Radek,

thanks for your great software-stack ;-)

But I had severe problems using
cat astroberry-XXX.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=32M

to flash the image onto a sandisk 16 GB card. SHA256 checksum was OK.
I tried on different machines (Ubuntu 17.10). I have 15 years+ experience using linux.

The only solution was using etcher ( etcher.io ) which worked without any problem.

I highly recommend, that you alter the Readme.md at github.com/rkaczorek/astroberry-server recommending etcher as preferred flash method. Also non experienced users on Mac, Windows or Linux will profit from this.

Cheers
Axel
Last edit: 6 years 2 weeks ago by Axel .
6 years 2 weeks ago #24140
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Replied by Rick Bonner on topic Astroberry Server

Hi

I have similar issue with scaling on android or iPad tablet. However when I try and set scaling to local, all the settings are grayed out on the left side panel and cannot be changed. Is there some permissions that need setting?
6 years 2 weeks ago #24142
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Hi Axel, thanks for the info. As the matter of fact I have never used etcher... I use old-school dd instead and it works for me.
What problem exactly have you had with flashing the SD?
6 years 1 week ago #24167
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Hi Radek, simply: the SD card was not formatted correct, the partition table was corrupt and had no content. It does not matter why, tools like "cat |" oder " dd if= / of=dev/" work ... but as you see they might not because they have no control mechanisms at all ;-) I normally have no problems using these tools but, I e.g. could not identify your format: what does "img.xz" stand for? Normally you use ",img" for a not compressed image or "img.gz/bz" for a compressed image. "xz" is not known by me. Therefore I did not use dd.

The point is, I have no problem with that - but for non Linux users "dd", "cat" and using a "pipe / |" is simple not in the scope ;-)
Etcher is a well proven, working tool for flashing cards.

Thanks again for your software stack.
I removed software, that used up a lot of memory and startup: cups server, disabled automatic apt-check (eats up memory and slows system down), removed conky completetely (same) and installed zRam.

Cheers Axel
Last edit: 6 years 1 week ago by Axel .
6 years 1 week ago #24173
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Thanks for your comments Alex. I do appreciate your input. I will be releasing new version soon so I will be updating the documentation as well.

BTW. xz is very efficient compression utility for images e.g. Ubuntu Mate images for Raspberry Pi are available in this format - see here .
BTW2. zRam is already included from the last version (1.0.4). It's used to create swap space using small part of RAM. Have you expanded it's use? Could you provide any details?
6 years 1 week ago #24175
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Hi Radek,

thanks for the information about .xz-format. Either I forgot about it or did not realize any more that it exists ;-)

I did not enhance the usage of zRam. My Pi uses now ~380 from 860MB Ram using Kstars and Ekos. But I have to add, that I increased the avaiable ram toward more graphics ram from 64 to 128MB which is recommended for RealVNC and should apply to VNC as well. This can be don done via
sudo raspi config
 
Advanced Options -> Memory Split

I encounter now a much more responsible screen. I tried also Real-VNC (it IS a better product, than the standard vnc server), but I had severe problems with multiple startups of 'Xnvc-core' instances which I could not resolve (and cannot due to high work volume) - they ate up all volume.


Then I disabled the automatic update check (apt-check) which costs a lot of memory and speed. The Pi was almost not usable at startup.
sudo nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic
 
APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "0";
APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages "0";
APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "0";
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "0";

Next is probably not necessary due to the altering of the file before:
sudo nano /etc/apt/apt.conf
 
APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "0";removed apparmor and conky
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "0";

This next should be done, it creates a special startup file for the astroberry user to disable the autostart of the update-notifier:
mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart
cp /etc/xdg/autostart/update-notifier.desktop ~/.config/autostart
nano ~/.config/autostart/update-notifier.desktop
 
[...]
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false
[...]

I also removed apparmor and conky completetly - they only make trouble / cost ram:
sudo apt-get remove conky* apparmor


When I will get Real-VNC running I am happy ;-)


Greets from a really nice place on the landside near Berlin hanging out with my astro-friends
I will keep this particualar post #24176 updated when I add more successful changes.
Axel
The following user(s) said Thank You: Radek Kaczorek
Last edit: 6 years 1 week ago by Axel .
6 years 1 week ago #24176
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Again thanks for the link. Just to mention: ubuntu-mate.org/raspberry-pi/ also points out other ways using "ddrescue (command line interface)" or "gnome-disk-utility (graphical user interface)". But I made my experiences with non-Linux-users ;-) and I always simply recommend Etcher - it is really beauiful and although does not need an installation procedure ... and it is open source.
Last edit: 6 years 1 week ago by Axel .
6 years 1 week ago #24182
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Replied by Axel on topic Astroberry Server


Hi Paul,

which changes did you do to VNC and/or /boot/config.txt exactly?

I tried to edit ~/.vnc/config with e.g.
-geometry widthxheight

without success.

Cheers
Axel
6 years 1 week ago #24191
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Replied by Axel on topic Astroberry Server

UPDATE: Found a solution:
sudo pv /dev/mmcblk0 | xz -c > astroberry-server_1.0.4_customized_$(date +%F).img.xz
Where /dev/mmcblk0 is the sdcard. It could also be something like /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc ... Check with "dmesg" after inserting the sdcard.

Hi Radek,

sorry: one last question again using "xz": how exectly do you compress a given (!) sdcard into an "img.xz"?
I don't want to / can't use dd or ddrescue because the image gets to big.

Greets Axel
Last edit: 6 years 1 week ago by Axel .
6 years 1 week ago #24192
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Replied by Radek Kaczorek on topic Astroberry Server

Take a look at the manual page linux.die.net/man/1/xz ;-)
Instead pipelinening dd & xz you can just make an image using your preferable tool and next compress it with xz. It gets gigabytes to megabytes... it takes some time but it works well.
6 years 6 days ago #24434
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Replied by Rick Bonner on topic Astroberry Server

Hello,

How do you download more Astrometry index files ? Is there a loader selector or a place to copy and paste from VNC Viewer or browser or do you have to copy via SSH ?
6 years 1 day ago #24548
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