Starting summers observatory project

[MultumInParvo]

One for both @Gonzo and you @Magnus_e:

Getting down to commissioning the two devices for control imaging as per your build Magnus, and wondered if you both have favoured distros?

Is there any software beyond the distros that you find essential or useful?

I have an odroid N2 for imaging and it comes with Ubuntu MATE on its 16Gb eMMC card, the other is as Raspi 3b+ that has nothing on it at the moment.

As an aside, despite having worked in technology for 34 years, I have never really come into contact with Linux and I find I can't even tell how to get the version number out of ithe Ubuntu MATE interface.  I am now hanging my head in shame at being (temporarily) beaten and going off to google for an idots guide to Linux...

I may try to put together another thread that details this side as I found the forum to mostly contain really specific questions rather than a more basic thread on how to set up a cheap and low power rig, something that could perhaps offset some of the cost of this hobby...

[CedricTheBrave]

to find the o/s version in linux type cat /etc/os-release into a terminal window

 

[MultumInParvo]

Thanks Cedric, that helps. 

Funny that there seem to me multiple ways to skin a cat in Linux... 

[CedricTheBrave]

7 hours ago, MultumInParvo said:

Thanks Cedric, that helps. 

Funny that there seem to me multiple ways to skin a cat in Linux... 

yes always 

[Gina]

Useful info - thank you.

[MultumInParvo]

I spent some usef time with good old-fashioned best guess followed by trial and error, and it would seem I have an Odroid N2 and a Raspi 3b+ now with Ubuntu MATE 18.04 and the latest Raspbian on them. 

I ran the scripts helpfully compiled by 

I spent some usef time with good old-fashioned best guess followed by trial and error, and it would seem I have an Odroid N2 and a Raspi 3b+ now with Ubuntu MATE 18.04 and the latest Raspbian on them. 

I ran the scripts helpfully compiled by Rob Lancaster (https://github.com/rlancaste/AstroPi3) but ran out of time to test them before I had to come to Edinburgh, and, fundamentally, hadn't got to the point of opening them up so I can remote in from here, which is the end game. 

Whilst KStars and other elements all hide within Ubuntu and Raspbian, this makes the whole process of exposing and configuring them not just easy, but almost pleasurable.  I spen a good couple of hours trying to install RealVNC on the Odroid after the out of the box VNC server kept quitting thinking it was under attack, with precious little success, now knowing more about Linux C Library dependencies than anyone should need... 

There is stuff in the scripts that sets up just about everything you need, all the way down to creating a red theme you can turn on and off with icons.

And @CedricTheBrave, there is a lovely panel that sits to the right of the desktop that tells me all about my software versions and what each core is up to. 

I'll test them both this weekend and report back.