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How Update Kstars on Astroberry RPi4

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Well here goes these are the steps that worked for me. Hope this helps but I have to say that you follow them at your own risk.
I am certainly no Linux expert and I am using a RPi4 running the latest version of RPi OS.
All the commands following are typed in a terminal window after the $ prompt. I have shown them in large font



Since RPi OS is a version of Debian I followed the steps on the link below for Debian.
If you copy and paste this into your browser it will give more info.
techbase.kde.org/Projects/Edu/KStars/Bui...ing_various_versions

The first thing is to make sure you have all the prerequisites and dependencies.
So open Terminal and type the following command, probably easiest to copy and paste it using the right mouse button. This is all one line it is just wrapping in the viewer.

sudo apt-get -y install build-essential cmake git libeigen3-dev libcfitsio-dev zlib1g-dev libindi-dev extra-cmake-modules libkf5plotting-dev libqt5svg5-dev libkf5xmlgui-dev kio-dev kinit-dev libkf5newstuff-dev kdoctools-dev libkf5notifications-dev qtdeclarative5-dev libkf5crash-dev gettext libnova-dev libgsl-dev libraw-dev libkf5notifyconfig-dev wcslib-dev libqt5websockets5-dev xplanet xplanet-images qt5keychain-dev libsecret-1-dev breeze-icon-theme


You will be asked for your password which in my case was the default

It might ask you to confirm some things as it runs just type Y if prompted.

When it's done you will be returned to the Terminal prompt $

Create and change into a KDE development directory:
mkdir ~/kde && cd ~/kde

Fetch the KStars source code: this site converts links to green characters so make sure that you copy and paste the following line:
git clone anongit.kde.org/kstars

Create and change into a build directory for compilation:
mkdir build && cd build

The next steps will take some time so get a coffee

Run the configure process with cmake:
cmake ../kstars -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr

Compile KStars:
make

Install KStars:

sudo make install

Thats it.


To get updates in future its very easy
cd ~/kde/kstars
Git pull —rebase

Good luck
The following user(s) said Thank You: Avocette, Joaquin, jiberjaber
Last edit: 3 years 7 months ago by David Thompson.
3 years 7 months ago #57471

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Congrats on compiling, and glad it works for you. It seems that if compiling it yourself did not show the same problems as you had before, then there are problems with the packages made available in the repo that need to be addressed.
3 years 7 months ago #57472

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The only issue is that the astroberry repo has not been updated with the latest kstars release which only came out last week. Some of us are eager to try the new features hence taking the step to compile from source.
3 years 7 months ago #57473

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@wornish, yes I see it was others having problems with ports and devices after the apt upgrade, not yourself. If the kstars packages had not been updated yet, it would be the OS changes, not the kstars package, that introduced differences. A bit of leapfrog going on between the OS and kstars. Your recompile seems to make everything work well together again, so hopefully when the new packages are released, they will also work well with the latest OS updates.
3 years 7 months ago #57475

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Thank you for the detailed explanation, wornish!

I'll give it a few more days and if, by the time I am ready for my next clear night session Astroberry didn't update regularly, I'll try your method.
3 years 7 months ago #57479

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David (@wornish):

I didn't check your dependencies etc carefully, but a few comments on your compile instructions:

1- The KStars README.md file invent.kde.org/education/kstars/-/blob/master/README.md also gives compile instructions.

2- For the kstars cmake command, you should probably add -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo, i.e.
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo ../kstars
That gets the compile to run 'optimized' which for several operations makes the executable run much faster (though it probably slows
down the compile). I believe it defaults to Debug/not-optimized.

3- When you run your make, you should add -j6 or -j8. The '6' version means "if possible run up to 6 compiles in parallel" which is usually
fine on an RPi4 with 4Gb of memory. You'd run -j8 on a faster machine with more memory. You can experiment with the number.
(On an old Rpi3, I'd stick with the way you have it, equivalent to -j1). So the commands would be
make -j6 kstars
sudo make install
You'll still need to "get a cup of coffee" but a compile from scratch will take ~40 minutes instead of 2-3X that.

Hy
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Last edit: 3 years 7 months ago by Hy Murveit.
3 years 7 months ago #57490

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The USB problems are still present in the very latest OS upgrade I carried out today, and upgrading to KStars 3.5.0 has no significant effect on this. So whereas the fallback of a clean installation of the Astroberry 2.0.2 image ported to an SSD works well, and lists 14 USB devices under lsusb, the latest RPi OS with KStars 3.5.0 doesn't list any of the USB2.0 devices connected to the USB3.0 powered hub, nor via the USB2.0 hub built into the ASI533MC camera.
3 years 7 months ago #57501

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I just tried mine again running KStars 3.5 all my USB connections are working fine. EKOS connects to all my gear with no errors.

It is very strange that all is well with the earlier version of Kstars. I did a completely fresh install of RPi OS and then the latest Astroberry before doing the compile for Kstars. Its a pain having to redo all the settings but it was worth it.
I would have thought if it was an Astroberry or a Kstars issue this forum would be full of people raising concerns.
3 years 7 months ago #57502

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I fully agree - I keep searching on other forums for any signs of people suffering similar issues! I wouldn’t mind so much if things had not worked very reliably until the recent OS/kernel upgrade. Still I had a good night last night targeting IC5070 without hiccup!
3 years 7 months ago #57504

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Hello,

What I keep reading is a USB device stops working. A USB connected to what and how many what types needs definition. USB 2.0 specifies 5v at 1.2 Amps. With 3.0, 5V at 2 Amps is the specification. That is one port to one device. Now, string a chain of them out.

USB hubs look to be a problem. Not all hubs manage power as claimed. I went from 7 port hubs to 4 because the last few items in the chain didn’t have enough power to initialize. Marginal power can cause anyone in the chain to loose power if the neighbor needs more to boot or operate.

AstroBerry and INDI are not responsible for all hubs. LSUSB is a friend. Udevadm is the other friend. But neither can help a power issue.
3 years 7 months ago #57511

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I sympathise with your general points here, and there are always potential issues with power distribution. But it seemed such a black/white switch from the old OS and software/hardware to the new OS with same software and hardware but USB problems. There are some threads elsewhere on Indilib forum starting to talk of similar problems arising subsequent to last week’s linux kernel upgrade - and it may well be quite deep in the system. I’m not a linux expert, I want to do astronomy not programming, and happily I’m back to running the Astroberry 2.0.2 from May 2020 with all the USB elements operating properly.
3 years 7 months ago #57517

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Has anyone actually heard from Radek in the last month?

I've not seen any activity from him since the end of June, I suppose he might be away on holiday or something?
3 years 7 months ago #57529

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