HI Steve, this sounds like a port conflict. Can you tell me how ekos tries to find the mount port? Is it something like /dev/ttyUSB0 or something similar?

Thanks, Mattia. I still don't know what the name of the system /dev device is (can someone tell me how to find out) but, there is a setting on the connection page of the mount driver that lets me select one. Then it works, even with gps plugged in.

Mattia:
I am unable to install kate using pacman as you suggest. I don't know enough ArchLinux to be fluent in this command. I don't see an install command in pacman but the help indicates that -U (upgrade) can install packages. but this doesn't work:

[code]sudo pacman -U kate astronaut@astroarch
[sudo] password for astronaut:
loading packages...
error: 'kate': could not find or read package[/code}

Please provide the command (or suggest another text editor). Thanks foir all you do.

Hi Steve! You were almost there! Just replace the U with a S (sudo pacman -S kate)

The thing you did from the port selector is exactly why I was thinking of, so I am glad it works now!

Best,
Mattia

Hi, Mattia. Thanks for the pacman tip. Why "--sync" would be the command to install something was not intuitive to me.

As far as the GPS thing is concerned, it's working now, but only "more or less". It does not appear to be working, and the system date upon reboot appears wrong in the GUI, and also wrong in the output of the date command. But if I wait a couple of minutes, Both things seem to set themselves right. Also, running the command cgps initially shows nothing, but once the display is updated, then cgps shows a stream of data. Any idea what this might be about?

Two things that made my use of a UBlox GPS less than reliable -
- close proximity to the RPi when directly plugged in to the UBS port - maybe caused by digital RF interference from the RPi into the GPS receiver - improved by using with a USB extension cable.
- shadowing of GPS satellites due to surrounding buildings - cured by choosing positions for the mount which had good overall ‘vision’ of the sky, and placing the UBlox on its extender cable high up on the mount/telescope assembly.

Hmmmm. Close proximity to the Pi was precisely what I chose in order to avoid another cable to add to the tangle. But it seems there are other issues to consider!

Thanks for the tip!

Hmmmm. Close proximity to the Pi was precisely what I chose in order to avoid another cable to add to the tangle. But it seems there are other issues to consider!

Thanks for the tip!

The GPS issue continues to be a nagging issue, one of these unpredictable things where I never know what to expect. I have tried Avocette's suggestion of connecting ther gps with a longer etension cable but it doesn't really help.

I have to start Ekos with the auto-connect disabled or it will not work correctly. Even though I set with this screen



I find I always must click the "Prolific Technology" button on the Mount INDI settings page and the AutoSearch disabled to have any chance of succeeding. Why aren't THESE settings persisted? It would be a big help to me if they were. Another helpful thing would be if someone could come up withsome shell script that could be executed to insure that the mount connector has priority. Even if I do set things up this way, after a previous run of /KStars/Ekos where I forgot to do them, I get another nastygram:



Evidently, the Serial-Controller_D-if00-port0 thing is not disconnected when I press disconnect, and there's no help for it but rebooting the Pi. (again, if some helpful soul would provide info on disconnecting this port via command line, that would help).

Which brings us to another question. Why does the Connection Settings screen have both a System Ports field and a Ports field. What is the point? Should I use one or the other or both. And on this screen there are no helpful tool tips.

Another nagging issue is that it takes some time, maybe a minute or two, for the gps to be reflected either on the AstroArch GUI or in the output of the date command. Which can get annoying when I have to reboot the Pi because of the above issues.

Where are the appearance settings for the Dolphin file manager that ships with AstroArch? I cannot find them and I find the default settings with the grey on black theme are impossible to use. I can find settings for everything else, such as layout of the file information, etc., but not the appearance/color scheme/theme. I've looked in the Dolphin manual and don't see this. The manuals \, in fact show screens with a light theme, that I have not found the way to achieve.

A strange thing happened during my session last night. Caps Lock on the Pi got turned on, and pressing Caps Lock on my laptop wouldn't make it go away. On my laptop, Caps Lock was in the normal state - off.I could type into the Pi Konsole window with shift key depressed and this would get me lower case but I couldn't make Caps Lock go away. Is there a command in Arch-Linux for doing this?

Hello Mattia!

I used Astroberry until some time ago. But unfortunately the Kstars version was not the latest and no recent updates had arrived. So, I looked for another distribution for my raspberry, but none suited me. And I came across yours based on Archlinux. Being an Arch user for a long time, I immediately tried your distribution.

You had a very good idea to use Archlinux. Especially for those who like command lines and tinkering with their OS. For others, I think it is better to install a Manjaro ARM distribution on their raspberry, which will be more stable since the updates are slower. Well, after installing Astroarch on my ssd and launching everything on my raspberry remotely, because I don't use a screen when I'm out in the mountains for my astro evening. I noticed some problems, for example setting up the desktop, as well as oddities with KDE and the fact that GPS is missing.

So rather than just telling you my difficulties, desires, or others . I decided to get my hands dirty and do an installation from scratch. After looking at your files, I noticed that you did not always follow the Arch Wiki recommendation and that some of your packages were no longer used and replaced by other systems (ex: systemd). After many hours, I finally have an OS that works perfectly. I invite you and anyone who would be interested to share my method of installing Arch arm64 on raspberry. I took the liberty of using the name astroarch for my installation. I hope you don't blame me.