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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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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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RaspberryPi have advantage that you can force HDMI output even without any monitor attached. That way GPU is initialized and running. Regular desktop doesn't init GPU unless there is connected monitor or dummy HDMI so there is no desktop that VNC can grab.

It is possible to run virtual screen which works and I did used that but it still have some issue. Easiest and most reliable solution is just use dummy HDMI.
1 year 5 months ago #86973

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Thanks Nou, that confirms why I could not find any proper way to handle this without hardware dummy video dongle.

So we all agree the hardware dummy video driver is the best solution for remote session on regular computer (Not raspberry). It's not really an big deal because they are very cheap (specially for VGA because it's only 2 or 3 resistors between some pins and it can be easily DIY).

Valentin
1 year 5 months ago #86974

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Some NUC's have virtual display. This may be the best approach for those: www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/...33413/intel-nuc.html

I did manage to get my ubuntu 22.04 install to work. This is on a ACEPC mini PC with an i5-5257U CPU. I had it running my Losmandy GM811G mount with ZWO1600 ZWO178 Camera / guide camera last night. It did work better than my RPI4 in the sense that it was faster downloading images. I still have issues though.

- I don't really like the default "unity" style desktop. This is personal taste, but I had to spend a lot of time getting the "classic" to work well. Especially headless.
- Remote display is disabled unless there is a physical display attached (I believe that NUC's have a bios setting to enable a virtual one). There may be some work-around for this in software, like a dummy X server, but I opted for an HDMI dummy dongle. This worked for a few min, then the performance drops and it is basically unusable. The best way to use it is with a standalone VNC server. This is OK, but snap apps fail to run with some cgroup error, and many features are not available, like "shutdown / reboot" I'm sure there are ways to get these things to work, but it's a real time sink.
- Every 20 min or so the connection just freezes. It returns after a bit and I can see that it was running fine, just the VNC connection is frozen. Again another time sink to get this resolved.

Don't get me wrong, I am a long-time Ubuntu user, and generally prefer it's simplicity of use, but in this case going headless has been a great big headache. I may try out UbuntuMate.

-- Update
I've worked on tweaking it this morning. Here's a couple of things that I've done in an attempt to address the vnc freezing.
-Disable cups. It's a snap app and I saw some network errors in dmesg about it. Not sure if this is a real issue, but I turn it off like this:
-disable cups: systemctl disable cups.service cups.socket cups.path
- set ."wifipowersave=2" in /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf to turn off any wifi power saving.
-disable ipv6 in both my wifi and ethernet interfaces.

Seems to be working, but it's hard to tell since it's intermittent.
Last edit: 1 year 5 months ago by James Amendolagine.
1 year 5 months ago #86980

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Last weekend I received my NUC 8i5BEH (16 GB, 500 GB M.2 Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus). I installed Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and after some hours of consulting Google et al I finally managed so set up VNC access (x11vnc) and Remote Desktop access (built-in). In my case, the responsiveness is way faster with Remote Desktop than with VNC, so I stay with RDP. I have a HDMI dummy connected and added my desired screen resolution manually (xrandr).

KStars/Ekos/Indi is installed and working, as well as PHD2 and FireCapture. KStars is much much faster now, but I had no real session under clear skies yet. FireCapture works in principle, but it crashes when I try recording with the camera binned or when I try to set a ROI. So still some investigation to be done (or switching to another software like OACapture).

But, for the time being I'm happy with the new setup and hope to test it under real conditions soon.

CS, Bernd

Edit: FireCapture works, it was a too large heap size setting. With a reasonably sized ROI of 550x550 pixels I get 69 fps during recordings. Again, real life tests pending, but it looks very promising!
Last edit: 1 year 5 months ago by Bernd Limburg.
1 year 5 months ago #87092

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Hi everyone,

I have spent some times on my setup with Linux Mint MATE.

I have some freezing with VNC client and Reminna on Linux machine (not on Windows or android and iOS apps). I gave a try for NoMachine and it is way faster than before. It runs on all platforms, There’s also a dark theme mode for display, good thing on the night. So I will stay with NoMachine.


Other topic, I am a DSO astrophotographer for 2 years, and I am starting to try some planetary imaging with an ASI 178MC. For the moment,Ekos is not well designed for this task. After some diggings in this very forum, I found this post about the software AstroDMx Capture on linux distro, and it seems to be very good after my first attemps on shooting Jupiter and hte moon in the city using an ASI178MC and an mini telescope on dobson . I need to try with my newton and barlow, but it seems promising.
The workflow is using Kstars/EKOS with a profile with only my mount and the guide camera (6O/240mm). And i use AstroDMX Cpture for my ASI 178MC to capture video. The Guide telescope and the main telescope must be aligned but that should the case.
Last edit: 1 year 5 months ago by Val Chevalier.
1 year 5 months ago #87099

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I think that I found the issue. It was not Ubuntu 22, it was my usb connection to my zwo asi 1600 was resetting, and that was causing general system slowness / lockup issues.

The dmsg log had many of these in it: "reset SuperSpeed USB device number 5 using xhci_hcd"



I installed Ubuntu 20 and it had the same issue. On further inspection I found that I needed to apply this setting in the bios to get past it:

USB Precondition: enabled
xHCI Mode: smart auto
trunk gating: enabled
per port disable control: enabled

The one that seemed to do the trick is "xHCI Mode: smart auto"

I never have gotten past this issue. I also tried it on a completely different desktop intel system, and still see "reset SuperSpeed USB device number 5 using xhci_hcd"
Last edit: 1 year 4 months ago by James Amendolagine.
1 year 4 months ago #87808

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Just a quick note than an alternative to getting a dummy HDMI dongle is to use the dummy monitor driver xserver-xorg-video-dummy. I've used it with X11vnc on Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04. I use a script to switch between dummy mode and HDMI mode depending on whether or not I want to run my Mele PCs headless or not.

If interested just google xserver-xorg-video-dummy. There are articles out there on setting it up.
1 year 4 months ago #87906

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In answer to the initial question, I run Fedora Linux on my NUC, but I am biased as I also keep a Fedora COPR up to date with packages for anyone that wants them.

One question I do have though, I notice a lot of people are preferring to run VNC or other remote screen options from the scope computer. Why not just run INDI services at the scope and connect up with kstars from your cozy house? You avoid all the remote desktop hassles. Having set up both ways, I much prefer any GUI stuff running locally, but want to hear what people have run into.

Jim
1 year 4 months ago #88136

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I run everything on the computer connected to the mount just in case there is some network issue, and to keep image storage bandwidth down. This way if something goes wrong with wifi everything at the telescope is running just fine. Using VNC I get the best of both worlds by being able to access the desktop remotely, but having a reliable system running just fine even if there are wifi glitches.
1 year 4 months ago #88137

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About why not using a INDI server on RasPi and having Kstars remotly, I have tried but I need to add another long LAN cable, it's not very conviniant to me. Or I could use WIFI, but not very reliable. And, as James, i don't want some latency caused by the network. Third point, to do planetary imaging, remote control is not a option as I use EKOS to control the mount and plate solving with a profile with only eqmod and my guide camera. But the other camera is controled by another software. Maybe there is a way to remotly controlled it to but I have not found out yet how.

All these reasons make me prefer the local solution.

And I still love staring the sky with my dobson tube during my DSO imaging sessions, so it's not really a pain to stick to my setup as I am already close to it. And during the cold nights to come, I can monitor everything from the warm house.

Valentin
Last edit: 1 year 4 months ago by Val Chevalier.
1 year 4 months ago #88144

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