EKOS on Astroberry - Running Out of RAM?

[Ian McCallum]

I've been trying the plate solving and guiding software in EKOS, on my Astroberry Pi (using the simulator mode).  When it comes to plate solving a star that I've chosen, it says there's no enough RAM to run in parallel in the message window, then locks up the whole EKOS/KStars programme.  I know that people have recommended running the RPi with 4GB of RAM, but I was only able to obtain a 2GB version.  I didn't foresee this problem, but I'm a newbie to the RPi.

Any recommendations?🤔

[Rallemikken]

Turn your Pi into a headless pure INDI-server, and run Kstars/Ekos on a real computer. All the benefits, and a few bonuspoints to. You sit in your livingroom with a laptop or tower. You manage your rig over wireless, and get the pictures directly into the machine inside. Only bottleneck can be wireless speed, depends on your router. The Pi3 B+  should be able to transfer a 25mb sub in 5 seconds. You can always use ethernet, if distance is not to long.

I have a guide here -  http://www.agle.no/astro/kommeigang.html  - norwegian, so you'll probably understand zero, but you will get an idea of the path. You'll have to set the Pi up from the ground. Running Kstars/Ekos on a Pi sounds stupid in my ears. Slow on CPU-intensive tasks, and no real storage solution. Better use it where it shines, as a tool to tie your rig into one piece, and use proper computers to do the heavy lifting. In this way, you can check your subs as they roll in, delete, move, even stack, without beeing afraid of chooking the rig.

 

[Ian McCallum]

My Windows 8.1 laptop only has 2GB of RAM, so it has the same amount of RAM as my RPi 4B.  I need to look into this further...  Upgrading the laptop to Windows 10 isn't an option, as I tried that before and it was much slower.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Ian McCallum

[Ian McCallum]

I don't know how, but I've got it working now.🤔

[Rallemikken]

Anyway, don't think you can run Kstars under Windows, maybe I'm wrong. Nevertheless, Linux is a much better option if the laptop you have is skinny. You can start this journey by installing Linux Mint. Shrink one of the NTFS-partitions and install it alongside windows if you are dependent on it for other things. The best option which don't risk anything on your harddrive would be regular install on a big USB3-stick, say 32 or 64gb. You will need another stick as install medium. Do as follows:

- Get the most recent install image of Linux Mint 20

- Write it to a USB-stick

- Get another, slightly beefy USB-stick for the final install

- Plug both into your laptop

- Boot, while hitting the magic key that takes you to the boot menu

- Boot from the install stick

- Install Mint onto the second stick. Do your homework regarding partitioning.

- Install the boot loader on the second, beefy stick with the fresh Mint install.

- Unplug the first stick, boot, hit the magic key, choose the remaining USB-stick, and then choose Mint in the boot menu (it may also have windows).

- Make yourself familiar with the new OS, add Jason's PPA, and install Kstars-bleeding and indi-full.

- Try to manage your rig with this. If you succed, continue with a Pi as an indi-server, and you are on your way.

If this scares you, open your laptop and REMOVE the harddisk inside, eventually put in another and install Linux on that. The reward for putting in some effort is big. Linux is technically superior and very resource-efficient. The combo Kstars/Ekos/INDI is one of, if not the best, total-solutions for this task, and it is open-source and free. It is buildt for Linux, and runs best in it's native environment.

PS: My advice is to choose either MATE or XFCE as your desktop environment.

 

 

[SplintUK]

On 11/03/2022 at 13:34, Ian McCallum said:

I've been trying the plate solving and guiding software in EKOS, on my Astroberry Pi (using the simulator mode).  When it comes to plate solving a star that I've chosen, it says there's no enough RAM to run in parallel in the message window, then locks up the whole EKOS/KStars programme.  I know that people have recommended running the RPi with 4GB of RAM, but I was only able to obtain a 2GB version.  I didn't foresee this problem, but I'm a newbie to the RPi.

Any recommendations?🤔

I did see someone in the for sale section selling a pi4 4mb...  I run Astroberry on a Pi4 4mb myself with local plate solving and memory hasn't been an issue for me... I do get the occasional unexpected crash in Kstars, but nothing memory related. 

 

[han59]

The parallel running  solver with eat up all memory. You could use the standard Astrometry.net solver or the Astap solver. An other solution would be CCdCiel program for aquisition which will use less resources.

Han

[pipnina]

I also have the 2GB pi and use astroberry too.

I have run out of ram once or twice, but I can still complete an imaging session as long as I do things a certain way.

Have low resources mode turned on in kstars (this stops previews from rendering above like 25% resolution, but that saves a lot of memory). Also I find if you need to open and close things too much it can cause issues.

I tend to run everything locally on the PI because it saves issues with connection loss and cuts down on image download times to my PC indoors. Not sure what you are doing differently to me. I use whatever solver is installed by default, but I only have the necessary fits files installed for solving.

[AstroMuni]

On 11/03/2022 at 19:15, Ian McCallum said:

I don't know how, but I've got it working now.🤔

One of the versions of Kstars had a memory leak issue which is fixed in recent update is my understanding. Stellar solver has also been updated.

[AstroMuni]

On 11/03/2022 at 20:39, Rallemikken said:

Anyway, don't think you can run Kstars under Windows,

There is a windows version of Kstars. Its just the INDI server that wont run on Windows.

I also ditched Windows on my old laptop due to inability to upgrade and run Linux Mint. Works a treat.

Edited May 5, 2022 by AstroMuni

[gilesco]

Couple of things to note.

1) The thepihut.com website always shows the popular Raspberry Pis as out-of-stock, and have done through the entire pandemic. This does not mean that if you place an order you won't get your preferred Raspberry Pi - it will usually go on backorder and your order will be fulfilled when the Pi arrives. Unfortunately the backorders exceed the production availability of the Pis, so when a delivery arrives at thepihut.com all the popular Raspberry Pis in that order are already sold, so they still don't appear in stock.

2) Getting the 8GB Pi4 may seem great, but to my knowledge the astroberry image is still based on the 32-bit version of Raspberry OS. This means that any single process running can still only access 4GB of memory.

3) Stellarsolver was developed as an improvement to speed up platesolving, and also remove some dependencies that made it difficult to run under certain OS's there are several ways that it achieves this. On the Pi, you don't have to use Stellarsolver, I believe you can still use a local or remote astrometry. It just requires you to change those settings. Astrometry will be slower, but will probably work better on the lower end Pis.

[Ian McCallum]

I've used the internal plate solver on KStars with some success now.  I just need to fine tune it and have some decent weather to get to use it.

[AstroMuni]

On 05/05/2022 at 15:50, gilesco said:

On the Pi, you don't have to use Stellarsolver, I believe you can still use a local or remote astrometry.

You are correct. You can use ASTAP or Astrometry