RPi3B ... new mb for lappy ... what to do? ...

[Demonperformer]

Right. First the good news - the RPi started and, in fact, surprised me by going straight into the GUI. This is actually being posted from the pi, so it is working (wired to the router) ... sort of.

I loaded all the packages and then downloaded libindi_1.2.0_rpi.tar.gz, but when I went to (presumably) unzip it, it said that there was no such file or directory. I checked the archive properties and found that it had been downloaded into '\home\pi\downloads' so tried adding that to the path and got the same result. I'm attaching a printout of my actions - any help as to what I am doing wrong (probably something obvious and/or stupid!) would be gratefully received.

Also, the text on the screen is horribly small. I found a way of altering the text of the menus etc, but not what I have on the screen itself. Is there a enlarging it?

Thanks.

pi 001

[Gina]

In my latest setup I installed Raspbian Jessie Lite and run headless ie. command line only and no GUI.  That uses a mere 4GB.  I've been controlling it for setting up with PuTTY on my Win7 desktop and using copy/paste to send command lines of text to the RPi.  I think I posted all the info in my other threads but I will shortly be doing the whole exercise again with a new 8GB micro SD and another RPi 3 B so I'll have all the code up together and will post the whole operation. 

Really it is quite simple and straightforward.  I have the all sky camera working with RPi 3 and controlling it over WiFi LAN.  I am capturing images with KStars/Ekos in a separate Linux Mint laptop.  I'm using TeamViewer to "talk and listen" to the laptop from my desktop PC.

 

[Demonperformer]

The only reason I am using NOOBS is that that is what came on the card and I am applying the First Law of Wing-Walking ("never let go of what you have hold of until you have hold of something else"). I may well, once I have it all running on this card, get another one and set it up with a minimal system (to give maximum room for fits files) although it has been suggested that a flash drive might be a better option. However, if I can't get libindi to load, I am going to have problems whatever I use ...

[Demonperformer]

PuTTY downloaded and installed, but it is saying it cannot connect because the host name does not exist

Pi is plugged in to power, it has a cat6 cable connecting it to the router, to which the desktop is also connected by cable ... mmm ...

[Gina]

"Walking before you try to run" is a good idea and that is what I did   As for installing INDIlib, I used the command line even though I had a GUI available - I found it simpler to just copy and paste lines of text for the INDI web site into the command line.  I did use the GUI to run a browser to access the INDI web site and used a wired connection to my router until I got WiFi working for my first setup. 

I am not using local data storage but transferring the capture data across the LAN and storing it on the client machine.  ie. the RPi has just the INDI library and indiserver while the client machine runs KStars.  This is perfectly satisfactory for the ASC as I'm using 60s exposures and only capturing every few minutes - data transfer take a few seconds.  However, for my main DSO imaging rig and the much bigger sensor on the ASI 1600MM-C I suspect the data transfer could take up to a minute - will have to see.

[Gina]

4 minutes ago, Demonperformer said:

PuTTY downloaded and installed, but it is saying it cannot connect because the host name does not exist

Pi is plugged in to power, it has a cat6 cable connecting it to the router, to which the desktop is also connected by cable ... mmm ...

I'm using the numerical form of the IP viz. 192.168.1.77 for my remote address.  I've found that works

[Demonperformer]

Right, got in via PuTTY using IP address. Now trying to sort out indilib-loading.

[Demonperformer]

Well, there seems to be no logic as to when the Pi tells me that "there is no such file or directory" and when it acts on the (identical) instruction typed.

Anyway, I have got it to attempt loading libindi - with only 39 of the modules being rejected as "leaving unconfigured"!

I'm out for the rest of the day, so will have another bash (no pun intended!) tomorrow.

[Demonperformer]

Update:
I have waded through the installation readout and it basically boils down to failure because of 6 modules that were "not installed". The remainder of the failures were due to modules that were "not configured yet".

Therefore, the plan will be to go looking for the 6 that were not installed and then to re-run the installation, which will hopefully bypass the modules that are already there (or simply overwrite them with not too much difficulty) and install the ones that it couldn't install previously because something else was "not configured".

Have got lessons this morning, so will have to tackle this later today.

The "not installed" modules are 'dkms', 'fxload', 'libgps21', 'libgsl0ldbl', 'libnova-0.14-0' & 'libusb-1.0-0-dev'. This is slightly worrying because at least 4 of these were in the list of modules on the original sudo apt-get install command (see screenprint in posts further up the page).

Thanks.

[tekkydave]

Did you run

sudo apt-get update

Before the

sudo apt-get upgrade

It ensures the system loads a full list of the packages available from the online repositories in order to be able to install them. It's also worth running these 2 commands prior to installing anything on a new  installation to get it up to date with the latest packages.

[Demonperformer]

I was running 'sudo apt-get install' (see screenprint above).

Thanks.

[Demonperformer]

OK, I have run update followed by upgrade.

I then installed fxload, which is required for libqhy & libqhy disappeared from the list of packages with unmet dependencies.

I then installed dkms and libqhy reappeared as having an umet dependency : fxload!!

Print out from Terminal attached.

Haven't got time to get to the bottom of this now ... will try later.

Thanks.

pi003

[tekkydave]

If it helps here are my personal instructions I made whilst installing mine. Some relate to doing things on a Linux PC but you are using Windows so may not apply.

RPi Build.txt

[Demonperformer]

Thanks, Dave.

The instructions you followed appear to be identical to the ones given on the website, but I am still unsure why adding a second dependancy removes the one I added in the previous instruction, which was accepted.

I'm not actually doing it from Windoze - I am inputting the instructions using Terminal in the Pi. I tried PuTTY, but could not see any great advantage to it and it just adds an additional link in the chain to cause problems.

[tekkydave]

The only time you really need putty is if you are using a 'headless' pi and talking to it via ssh over the network. Once it is not connected directly to a monitor, keyboard & mouse you will need to do it this way.

Maybe you need to start again with a fresh install of Raspian Jessie on the sd card.

[Demonperformer]

I never know whether to be concerned, or just satisfied, when something appears to have worked, but I can offer no reasonable explaantion why it should have done. By typing in a apt-get line containing all six of the missing files, instead of doing them one at a time, it seems to have accepted them and installed them all, together with the parts of indilib that were being rejected previously.

The directory now contains 54 files, which I hope is all that I should have! I will now have to go looking to sort out how to get the camera etc working on it.

Thanks.

pi@raspberrypi:~/Downloads/libindi_1.2.0_rpi $ tree
.
├── atikccd-1.8-armhf.deb
├── dcraw_9.26_armhf.deb
├── fliusb-dkms_1.3_armhf.deb
├── fliusb-source_1.3_armhf.deb
├── indi-aagcloudwatcher_1.3_armhf.deb
├── indi-aagcloudwatcher-dbg_1.3_armhf.deb
├── indi-apogee_1.5_armhf.deb
├── indi-apogee-dbg_1.5_armhf.deb
├── indi-asi_0.5_armhf.deb
├── indi-asi-dbg_0.5_armhf.deb
├── indi-bin_1.2.0_armhf.deb
├── indi-dbg_1.2.0_armhf.deb
├── indi-dsi_0.1_armhf.deb
├── indi-dsi-dbg_0.1_armhf.deb
├── indi-duino_0.2_armhf.deb
├── indi-duino-dbg_0.2_armhf.deb
├── indi-eqmod_0.3_armhf.deb
├── indi-eqmod-dbg_0.3_armhf.deb
├── indi-ffmv_0.1_armhf.deb
├── indi-ffmv-dbg_0.1_armhf.deb
├── indi-fishcamp_1.0_armhf.deb
├── indi-fishcamp-dbg_1.0_armhf.deb
├── indi-fli_1.0.0ubuntu3_armhf.deb
├── indi-fli-dbg_1.0.0ubuntu3_armhf.deb
├── indi-gphoto_1.4_armhf.deb
├── indi-gphoto-dbg_1.4_armhf.deb
├── indi-gpsd_0.3_armhf.deb
├── indi-maxdomeii_1.1_armhf.deb
├── indi-maxdomeii-dbg_1.1_armhf.deb
├── indi-qhy_1.6_armhf.deb
├── indi-qhy-dbg_1.6_armhf.deb
├── indi-qsi_0.5.0_armhf.deb
├── indi-qsi-dbg_0.5.0_armhf.deb
├── indi-sbig_1.7_armhf.deb
├── indi-sbig-dbg_1.7_armhf.deb
├── indi-sx_1.4_armhf.deb
├── indi-sx-dbg_1.4_armhf.deb
├── libapogee3_3.0.3234_armhf.deb
├── libapogee3-dev_3.0.3234_armhf.deb
├── libapogee-dbg_3.0.3234_armhf.deb
├── libfishcamp_1.0_armhf.deb
├── libfishcamp-dev_1.0_armhf.deb
├── libfli1_1.8.ubuntu5_armhf.deb
├── libfli-dev_1.8.ubuntu5_armhf.deb
├── libindi1_1.2.0_armhf.deb
├── libindi-data_1.2.0_all.deb
├── libindi-dev_1.2.0_armhf.deb
├── libqhy_0.1.8_armhf.deb
├── libqsi7_7.2.0_armhf.deb
├── libqsi-dbg_7.2.0_armhf.deb
├── libqsi-dev_7.2.0_armhf.deb
├── libsbigudrv2_2.1.1_armhf.deb
├── shoestring-1.1-armhf.deb
└── usbfocus-0.7-armhf.deb

0 directories, 54 files

[Demonperformer]

Have decided to go the easy route for a control machine - I have purchased a refurbished laptop that is already running linux. No fighting against windoze to get a decent-sized partition to set-up linux and no risk of completely destroying windoze in the process. Maybe not the cheapest option, but I feel a lot more relaxed now that I have made that decision, and it was only just over £60, so hardly that expensive either. Also, with a 60GB drive all to itself (there was one point on the page where it said 160GB, but I'm fairly sure that was a misprint as every other reference said 60), this will leave (after the OS, Kstars & Ekos) plenty of room to store a night's imaging - even if half of it is used by the progs, I would have room for something like 1000* 32MB files and I would be hard-pushed to take that many in a session (even with the long winter nights coming-up).

There will still be the issue of Polemaster, but, even if I have to use my windoze laptop for that, it will only be at the start of the session and that machine can then be safely "retired" inside for the rest of the evening. Also I have sent a message to QHY to see if they have any intention of producing a linux package for Polemaster, so I may even get away with that.

As such, I don't think there is a lot more to do with the RPi until the new laptop arrives (due 4 Nov).

Thanks.

[Demonperformer]

Just because there is not a lot I can do constructively on the RPi atm, that does not mean there is nothing I can do. Currently ingesting the WINE user's guide as this is a possible way I might get Polemaster to run on the linux machine.

[Gina]

That would be good

[riklaunim]

33 minutes ago, Demonperformer said:

Just because there is not a lot I can do constructively on the RPi atm, that does not mean there is nothing I can do. Currently ingesting the WINE user's guide as this is a possible way I might get Polemaster to run on the linux machine.

Wine doesn't have the hardware/driver layer of Windows so not everything is possible.

[Demonperformer]

Yes. But, subject to a different answer from QHY, the Polemaster appears not to have a linux-compatible driver. In which case, WINE would appear to be a good starting point to try to get it to work. [Linux supports other QHY cameras through Ekos, so I think the main problem will be the software GUI.] I'm not going to be able to try it one way or the other until I get the new linux laptop, but I'm just doing some reading ahead of that. If it does work, that will be great, if not then I shall have to think of something else. Worst-case scenario: "something else" means taking my windoze laptop out at the start of each session to run Polemaster to align the mount and then swapping to the linux/kstars/ekos set-up for the rest of the night, but I really hope it doesn't come to that.

Thanks.

[Demonperformer]

I choose to take the fact that a search for "polemaster" in Wine Bugzilla returns no results, as a hopeful sign

[Demonperformer]

22 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

I have sent a message to QHY to see if they have any intention of producing a linux package for Polemaster

I have received a response to my message to QHY:

"Hello,
Our polemaster camera is not suit for Linx computer now,later we will plan do it.
Best Regards"

So, at least initially, it will be either WINE or using the windoze laptop at the start of each session.

23 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

I have purchased a refurbished laptop that is already running linux

I have also heard that the linux laptop has been despatched and will be with me either next week, or the start of the following week (1-8 November).

[riklaunim]

If you need a Windows  driver to make something work then it will not work under Wine - it doesn't do driver level for hardware. Wine is not an emulator, just a translator of system calls from Windows to Linux layer. You would need something that is Windows - like Windows or to some extent ReactOS