Disclaimer: I am NOT a developer and NOT associated with this project, but I have been a user for a couple of years and I have had help from both the users and developers of these programs and I am just trying to offer my experience as it may help someone else.
Why: I have been running the Astroberry Server on (first on an Rpi 3 and now) an Rpi 4, under a Raspbian (buster) 32 bit OS. I have the RPi at the scope (I roll it out from the garage) and all the equipment connected to a powered USB 3.0 hub. I connect to the Rpi over ethernet cable to my home network using the Astroberry Server or VNC. Recently (since adding local plate-solving) I have had issues with Kstars/Ekos crashing during plate-solving and syncing the mount (Celestron CGEM). After studying the logs it seemed that memory locations were being over-written as I would see nonsense numbers (10 to the -289) as scale in the logs. There was experience from others that suggested a 64 bit OS was the way to go. I thought about changing the OS to an Ubuntu 64 bit system but was told that the Astroberry Server would not work on that OS. But I decided to go that route anyway and forgo the Astroberry Server and just run Kstars/Ekos and the IndiwebManager, but I also needed VNC access as I run everything remotely.
How: It took me a couple of days, with help, to get everything up and running under the Ubuntu 20.1 OS. I am not a programmer but having used Linux on the Rpi for numerous projects I am pretty familiar with using the command line. I offer the following as the best-effort of reading my notes and suggestions from others (do this at your own risk - of maybe messing up a new SD card!):
# Download and install Raspberry Pi Imager:
Rpi Imager
I did this on one of my windows machines, installed the imager, ran it to install the preferred Ubuntu OS on an SD card.
# Select your preferred Ubuntu install.
I choose to go the route of an Ubuntu Desktop environment, Ubuntu 20.1. My Rpi-4 has 8 Gb of RAM so I did not feel the need to go 'lite." I understand that this OS has limited time support (9 months or something like that), but there is the potential for upgrades. I can connect my Rpi up to a monitor, mouse and keyboard to get everything up and running, so I did not need to go the Ubuntu 20.04 server route. Your mileage may vary as to what you chose to do.
# Install on a SD card
At this point you can opt to modify a few files in the boot sector. You can modify files that control the display (usrconfig.txt or config.txt), control the network (network-config.txt) and the wireless setup ( 50-cloud-init.yaml)
The only one I modified (you may need to run the editor as admin and make sure to 'unlock' the SD card) was the config.txt file. I added the following lines at the end of the file:
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_group=2 #DTM
hdmi_mode=16 #1024x768@60Hz;
these are needed for the RPi and OS to recognize that it has a monitor attached and set that to Display: 0.
I find it easier to enter my network settings once the Rpi is up and running.
#put the SD into the Rpi and boot
I forget the details of what comes up here, but you get to set up the main user, set the password, give the computer a name, set your location, time zone and then you should see a reasonable GUI to work with.
If you google, setup up Ubuntu on Rpi there are any number of tutorials and videos; I watched and read several to become familiar with what I would be up against.
It pays to be familiar to be able to do things from a terminal window. I will not state the obvious here as many who may be reading this are far more capable than myself. But the commands I find very useful are (in no
particular order):
lsusb, dpkg, sudo systemctl status, sudo systemctl stop, sudo systemctl restart, sudo systemctl reload, ls (directory) | grep (whatever you are looking for e.g. ls /dev | grep tty*) and probably many more (google is your friend)
I will stop here for now and collect my thoughts (and see if there is any interest in this thread).
The next steps for me were to (details can follow based on interest):
# get it so I can ssh into the Rpi, I do this using 'putty' from my windows laptop and it is needed so you can log in and start the Rpi when it is headless (no monitor, keyboard or mouse).
# install a VNC server - I was instructed to use x11vnc as it is possibly the only one that will work with Display: ('0') the main display
# install a display manager and replace the built in GnomeDisplayManager - gdm3; I installed Lightdm
# turn off unattended updates (for now)
# install and configure SAMBA, it is used for transferring files to and from other systems
# install python3 pip (pip3) which is an installer for other programs - the newest version may already be installed, but never hurts (I don't think) to double check
# download and install the IndiWebManager and the lastest version of Kstars (Indi-full - you can decide here whether you want bleeding edge or just stable)
# You will find that the instructions for getting 'gsc' do not work, the developers are in the process of upgrading that package to the latest Ubuntu, it is not ready yet, there is a work around but it is only necessary if you need
it for the simulator and star images (I will admit my ignorance of not knowing what it is really for, so I just skipped it for now)
# download and install PHD2 - if you use it rather than the internal guider.
# select your preferred file manager and text editor (I used just what comes with Ubuntu)
# set up your network connections using the installed NetworkManager.
As I said it took me several hours and several false attempts (I do not read manuals!) to get it all together and up and running with my equipment. The good news was that once it was running and I re-ran the 'experiments' of loading and slewing using saved images (slewing the mount correctly), testing the 'capture, solve and sync' (with a blank image) the program gave the proper responses (no solution) and did not crash and examining the Astrometry log (which showed all reasonable numbers), I feel I am back on line again and in a better place. I can do all the things I need to do (run the IndiWebManager for my equipment, connect thru Kstars/Ekos, run PHD2 and exercise the equipment - yes we have Cloudy Nights so no real imaging yet) over a VNC connection.
Sorry for the wordy thread, just trying to help and maybe now I will have a place to go look for what to do the next time I have a 'senior' moment.
Ron