Moving to Raspberry Pi 4

[wornish]

Like a lot of people on here, I have been using the Raspberry Pi for running all my astronomy gear. I have been running Astroberry on my Raspberry Pi 3B+.  The Astroberry system comes with KStars, INDI and PHD2 and works superbly well.  The only  downside is that it takes quite a while to use the inbuilt astrometry app to help you with targeting.  Also, saving large images over Wifi takes some time.  So the recent announcement of the RaspberryPi4 with 4GB memory sounded like real step forward.

Astroberry only runs on Ubuntu so that became a stumbling block for the move to the RPi4.  At the time of writing Ubuntu is still not officially available.  I know the author of Astroberry is planning on doing a version 2 for the RPi4 sometime in the future.

So I have been looking around the web for alternative approaches and have found two very useful sites.

The first is a repository called AstroPi3 which provides free scripts to auto setup a full astronomy config that includes Kstars, PHD2, INDI and more on a raspberry Pi, or other Single Board Computers (SBC's) running Ubuntu or Raspbian.  So for the first time it is possible to run this on a RPi4.

https://github.com/rlancaste/AstroPi3/blob/master/README.md

The second site is run by James A Chambers and he explains how to make use of the high speed storage possibility that the RPi4 now has with its USB3 ports.  At the moment USB boot is not available for the RPi4 but that doesn't mean you can't get around it and use high speed SSDs to run the system instead of slow SDCards.

https://jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-4-usb-boot-config-guide-for-ssd-flash-drives/

There is a storage benchmark that shows just what a difference you get by using a low cost SSD instead.  Its simply amazing the difference in performance you get.

https://jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-storage-benchmarks/

I ran the benchmark on my RPi4 with just a standard 16GB SDCard installed running Raspbian Buster. The benchmark score was 1025. Even using slightly faster SDCards still makes very little difference so not worth it. The RPi4 performance was not impressive and to be honest it felt no faster than the RPi3. Then I followed the instructions on James Chambers site and changed the system to boot and run off a SSD.  It took me two goes to get it right but the difference is just amazing. The new benchmark score was 8430 ! The system runs faster than my i5 Windows 10 laptop not joking.

So having moved to SSD for around £30 with the recommended USB3 SATA adapter and a Kingston SSD I then used the script from rlancaste site to install all the required apps. It worked flawlessly.  

The last piece of the puzzle is that the RPi4 runs much hotter than the earlier versions so needs either a case with a cooling fan or one than has a built in large heatsink.  The standard "official case has neither and it really is not fit for purpose.  Add to the challenge that large metal cases can severely reduce the WiFi range means there is no easy solution. This site gives you an idea of what's out there and what works.

https://www.martinrowan.co.uk/2019/09/raspberry-pi-4-cases-temperature-and-cpu-throttling-under-load/

I have just ordered the Flirc case today as that seems the best compromise and has just come back in stock after being sold out.

Hope the links above help others thinking about going down the Raspberry Pi path.

Edited September 14, 2019 by wornish
typo

[CedricTheBrave]

i am running 2xrpi4's with the flirc cases and am very pleased with them

Edited September 13, 2019 by CedricTheBrave

[david_taurus83]

I have the RPi4 with Stellarmate OS on there. Having initially tried the RPi3, the 4 is a huge step up in performance. Platesolving takes a few seconds using the offline guider. Still needs a few bugs ironed out but very pleased indeed. I let the RPi4 run everything and I monitor over VNC Viewer.

[han59]

Installing INDI is cumbersome on the Pi4. For those who are interested, I have prepared an Pi 4, Raspbian Buster image for a 32 gbyte memory card:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1c15nmRsHeIMaFBQ6NXHEfRpuXNhltnwU

 

A 4.1 byte rar archive, Unrar it with Winrar, 7zip or unrar

Use win32diskimager to write the *.img to your 32 gbyte memory card

If you get error 5, first format the card with SD formatter.

Installed software:

• INDI 1.8.1
• CCDCiel + ASTAP solver
• PHD2
• HNSKY planetarium program
• XRDP for remote desktop control from a window PC

 

If you want to install it all yourself:

Installation instructions:

 

[WanderingEye]

How well does it all run on the new rpi4....faster..??

Edited September 18, 2019 by WanderingEye

[Dr_Ju_ju]

It does, but my big gripe is that its all still 32bit, thereby negating one of the advantages of the Pi4, i.e. 64bit capable. 

Granted all the Apps are still 32bit, and will be for some time, but with a 64bit OS in place, upgrading will be much easier, without wiping the whole system clean..... 

So until there's a 64bit non-beta version of Ubuntu 18\19 available I'll hold off running it 'live', and just use it for testing.

[stash_old]

My 2bits - After adding ssd adapter (if not using USB3) ,fan,case,power, different HDMI plug then the cost is very close to more mainsream and straight forward set ups - Gigabyte Brix 2807. All of which run latest Ubuntu Mate 19.04 , Kstars/Indi etc(so simple updates possible) and in 64bit mode so not limited to 3.9GB memory .  

If you can bear to go 2nd hand (I do)  then there are some real (fleabay) bargain Intel I5-7, 8-16mb small form PC's that again will run Ubuntu Mate NOW and are not much bigger than a RPI4 plus Attached SSD card.

If you can wait and are not IT literate (or dont want the hassle) then @DR_JU_JU is 100% correct hold out until Ubuntu Mate appears officially or hope Jasem or others create a better updating mechanism for Buster (i.e. not recompiling each time).

Plus there are other alternatives to Kstars/Ekos that still use Indi server drivers (and in fact can use Ascom drivers at the same time) - e.g. CCDciel/CDC which  run on Windows or Macos or Linux. Even we poor DSLR cousin's can still attach the DSLR but access/conrol them across the network (NOT VNC).

Lots of options 🙂

Plus RPI5 will be out in less than a year LOL.

[wornish]

2 hours ago, WanderingEye said:

How well does it all run on the new rpi4....faster..??

Running simply from an SD Card the speed difference is marginal. BUT switch to an SSD and it is simply mind-blowing .  See the links in my first post.

Edited September 18, 2019 by wornish
typo

[han59]

From Pi 3 to Pi 4, the lost time between exposures is reduced with little more then a factor 2:

https://www.indilib.org/forum/ccds-dslrs/5416-raspberry-pi-4-vs-pi-3-performance-test/41015.html

[WanderingEye]

26 minutes ago, wornish said:

Running simply from an SD Card the speed difference is marginal. BUT switch to an SSD and it is simply mind-blowing .  See the lints in my first post.

As I understand you can’t boot from SSD, or USB drives, so you have to have the boot partition on an SD card, is that correct...? 

The thing is with an SSD you loose the small form factor, and it becomes as big as say an Intel NUC...

Edited September 18, 2019 by WanderingEye

[WanderingEye]

1 hour ago, stash_old said:

My 2bits - After adding ssd adapter (if not using USB3) ,fan,case,power, different HDMI plug then the cost is very close to more mainsream and straight forward set ups - Gigabyte Brix 2807. All of which run latest Ubuntu Mate 19.04 , Kstars/Indi etc(so simple updates possible) and in 64bit mode so not limited to 3.9GB memory .  

If you can bear to go 2nd hand (I do)  then there are some real (fleabay) bargain Intel I5-7, 8-16mb small form PC's that again will run Ubuntu Mate NOW and are not much bigger than a RPI4 plus Attached SSD card.

If you can wait and are not IT literate (or dont want the hassle) then @DR_JU_JU is 100% correct hold out until Ubuntu Mate appears officially or hope Jasem or others create a better updating mechanism for Buster (i.e. not recompiling each time).

Plus there are other alternatives to Kstars/Ekos that still use Indi server drivers (and in fact can use Ascom drivers at the same time) - e.g. CCDciel/CDC which  run on Windows or Macos or Linux. Even we poor DSLR cousin's can still attach the DSLR but access/conrol them across the network (NOT VNC).

Lots of options 🙂

Plus RPI5 will be out in less than a year LOL.

Stellarmate is already out on rpi4, on Ubuntu mate and or KDE...both work very well....

[WanderingEye]

1 hour ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

It does, but my big gripe is that its all still 32bit, thereby negating one of the advantages of the Pi4, i.e. 64bit capable. 

Granted all the Apps are still 32bit, and will be for some time, but with a 64bit OS in place, upgrading will be much easier, without wiping the whole system clean..... 

So until there's a 64bit non-beta version of Ubuntu 18\19 available I'll hold off running it 'live', and just use it for testing.

64 bit raspbian is out  now...

[Dr_Ju_ju]

3 minutes ago, WanderingEye said:

64 bit raspbian is out  now...

maybe, but I want Mate.....  especially when I want to be able to use the system for image manipulation, which will really benefit from x64 & more memory.....

[wornish]

11 minutes ago, WanderingEye said:

As I understand you can’t boot from SSD, or USB drives, so you have to have the boot partition on an SD card, is that correct...? 

The thing is with an SSD you loose the small form factor, and it becomes as big as say an Intel NUC...

Read the 2nd link in my first post it explains how to get around the boot limitation.

I used a Startech 2.5″ SATA SSD adapter cable with a Kingston SSD A400 Solid State Drive (2.5 Inch SATA 3), 120 GB.  The SSD is the same dimensions as the RPi case and is approx 3mm deep so no way as big as you think.

If you run a storage benchmark  to compare using SD Card or SSD the numbers speak for themselves: -

Original SD card only the score was    1025
With the SSD its 8430.  Effectively 8X. faster.

And when you run Kstars and Ekos they feel superb.

[WanderingEye]

2 hours ago, wornish said:

Read the 2nd link in my first post it explains how to get around the boot limitation.

I used a Startech 2.5″ SATA SSD adapter cable with a Kingston SSD A400 Solid State Drive (2.5 Inch SATA 3), 120 GB.  The SSD is the same dimensions as the RPi case and is approx 3mm deep so no way as big as you think.

If you run a storage benchmark  to compare using SD Card or SSD the numbers speak for themselves: -

Original SD card only the score was    1025
With the SSD its 8430.  Effectively 8X. faster.

And when you run Kstars and Ekos they feel superb.

What about an M2 SSD would this work, and even smaller....

[wornish]

54 minutes ago, WanderingEye said:

What about an M2 SSD would this work, and even smaller....

With the right adapter then yes.  But care is needed in selecting the right one as not all work.  Its explained all in the 2nd Link.  

If you look at the benchmarks on the third link some combinations score over 10000 on the storage benchmark that's 10 X faster than a standard SD Card.  But the costs go up significantly to get to that speed. 

[Steenamaroo]

3 hours ago, WanderingEye said:

As I understand you can’t boot from SSD, or USB drives, so you have to have the boot partition on an SD card, is that correct...? 

The thing is with an SSD you loose the small form factor, and it becomes as big as say an Intel NUC...

Last I checked this was the case ^. I think direct usb boot is in the pipeline, though.

I too was looking for small SSD solutions but ended up just using an old 2.5" and mounting it to the bottom of my makeshift pi case/tray.
Could be smaller, and neater, but it's fast. It'll do.

[stash_old]

3 hours ago, WanderingEye said:

Stellarmate is already out on rpi4, on Ubuntu mate and or KDE...both work very well....

In beta form only ! and its no 100% - looking at the comments on Indilib plus comment above "Still needs a few bugs ironed out".

 

3 hours ago, WanderingEye said:

64 bit raspbian is out  now.

Last time I looked it wasn't - officially - just someone's attempt.  Raspex ,which is 64bit, has been out for a while but still has problems.

Have enough lost clear skies time as is 🙂

[WanderingEye]

What we need is someone to bring out an rpi4 case that will also hold an SSD drive too...or 3D print one...

[WanderingEye]

here we go, how about this, looks perfect 

https://geekworm.com/blogs/news/the-new-v3-0-version-of-raspberry-pi-x850-msata-ssd-extension-board-has-been-released-in-

this one is better

https://geekworm.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b-x855-v1-3-msata-ssd-shield

and a case to be released for it...

£26 on Amazon UK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Geekworm-Raspberry-Shield-Expansion-USB3-0/dp/B07VYQ1FTL

Edited September 18, 2019 by WanderingEye

[DainiusU]

On 13/09/2019 at 20:55, david_taurus83 said:

I have the RPi4 with Stellarmate OS on there. Having initially tried the RPi3, the 4 is a huge step up in performance. Platesolving takes a few seconds using the offline guider. Still needs a few bugs ironed out but very pleased indeed. I let the RPi4 run everything and I monitor over VNC Viewer.

Are you running off SD Card or SSD? How large is the storage media?

[david_taurus83]

28 minutes ago, DainiusU said:

Are you running off SD Card or SSD? How large is the storage media?

32gb microSD. More than enough storage space for a few sessions.

[DainiusU]

On 18/09/2019 at 20:46, david_taurus83 said:

32gb microSD. More than enough storage space for a few sessions.

well, I have bought RPi4 4GB kit with a plastic cooling case. Invested 49$ in Stellarmate and it was pretty seemless experience. The guys made awesome tutorials, HEQ5, Canon DSLR and ZWO connected without issues. There was a Hotspot glitch (no surprise, RPi4 support is still in beta), was sorted by them next day with the new image upload. 
Thanks for recommendation, can't wait for the new ED scope and clear sky...