(Guide) installing INDI and Kstars/Ekos on Raspberry pi 5 the proper way

[murjo]

Hello all,

 

after buying a pi 5 for imaging, I've realized just how awful the indi ecosystem is to install. Sure, you can use `apt` for everything, but then you'll get indi 1.9.9, which is not enough for phd2. This guide aims to solve that, by at least seeing if what worked for me, works for you.

 

Get a fresh install of raspberry pi os: self explanatory, there are a million other guides for this, I won't be covering it here.

 

First, run

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

This will update your system and may take some time.

 

Next, install the indi dependencies (source: https://astroisk.nl/raspberry-pi-5-indi/):

sudo apt install -y git cdbs dkms cmake fxload libev-dev libgps-dev libgsl-dev libraw-dev libusb-dev zlib1g-dev libftdi-dev libjpeg-dev libkrb5-dev libnova-dev libtiff-dev libfftw3-dev librtlsdr-dev libcfitsio-dev libgphoto2-dev build-essential libusb-1.0-0-dev libdc1394-dev libboost-regex-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libtheora-dev

!!! IMPORTANT !!!

If you, at any point, get an error that a library wasn't able to be installed, just remove it from the install command. I'll try my best only to include libraries that still exist, but I can't be certain. The installation will likely work just fine without the library.

 If it doesn't work, leave a comment here and I'll look into it. It may also be necessary for you to add Mr. Mutlaq's repository:

sudo apt install software-properties-common python3-launchpadlib && sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa

 

Next, you'll need to decide where you want to store the uncompiled applications. I chose the ~/astro folder, you can choose anything else, just replace ~/astro with your folder path.

mkdir ~/astro
cd ~/astro

Get the repository and install indi:

cd ~/astro
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/indilib/indi.git
mkdir -p ./indi/tmp
cd ./indi/tmp
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ~/astro/indi
make -j4
sudo make install

Now you should have the latest version of indi on your system (at the time of writing this that is 2.0.8)

 

Moving on to Kstars/Ekos:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake git libstellarsolver-dev libeigen3-dev libcfitsio-dev zlib1g-dev libindi-dev extra-cmake-modules libkf5plotting-dev libqt5svg5-dev libkf5xmlgui-dev libkf5kio-dev kinit-dev libkf5newstuff-dev libkf5doctools-dev libkf5notifications-dev qtdeclarative5-dev libkf5crash-dev gettext libnova-dev libgsl-dev libraw-dev libkf5notifyconfig-dev wcslib-dev libqt5websockets5-dev xplanet xplanet-images qt5keychain-dev libsecret-1-dev breeze-icon-theme libqt5datavisualization5-dev
cd ~/astro
git clone https://github.com/KDE/kstars.git
mkdir ./kstars/tmp
cd ./kstars/tmp
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo ~/astro/kstars
make -j4
sudo make install

This will be (by far) the longest part of the installation, just let it do its thing. Another way of installing Kstars (but I'm unsure if it's good or not, it's a bit ugly) is to use apt:

sudo apt install kstars
cd ~/astro/indi/tmp
sudo make install

You have to install the latest version of indi back, because apt installs indi 1.9.9 along with Kstars (I think I also got a bad installation of Kstars like this, the Ekos button was missing)

 

 

You are now (hopefully) done!

 

Clear skies

Edited July 21 by murjo

[Avocette]

An alternative approach to installing KStars/Ekos/Indi is provided by a script created bu ‘nou’ (https://gitea.nouspiro.space/nou/astro-soft-build) You can choose to install the Stable version, which at the moment is KStars 3.7.1 with Indi 2.0.8, or the Latest development which today is 3.7.2 beta. This will likely become finalised as the next Stable version at the beginning of August.

I suggest you make sure to use the July 2024 update of Raspberry Pi OS 64 bit and in sudo-raspi-config choose ‘labwc’ as the GUI option, rather than WayFire which installs as standard. 

[TiffsAndAstro]

I'm hoping to use scope mounted windows pc, but if I can't this is my plan b.

Thanks for this, not used Linux in many years so it is a bit intimidating.

[murjo]

4 hours ago, Avocette said:

An alternative approach to installing KStars/Ekos/Indi is provided by a script created bu ‘nou’ (https://gitea.nouspiro.space/nou/astro-soft-build) You can choose to install the Stable version, which at the moment is KStars 3.7.1 with Indi 2.0.8, or the Latest development which today is 3.7.2 beta. This will likely become finalised as the next Stable version at the beginning of August.

I suggest you make sure to use the July 2024 update of Raspberry Pi OS 64 bit and in sudo-raspi-config choose ‘labwc’ as the GUI option, rather than WayFire which installs as standard. 

I agree this is a good script, but it didn't work for installing phd2 for me. I also somewhat prefer manually installing everything I can, since I wish to have as much control over everything as possible, especially after all the struggles with indi and ekos. Even the eqmod driver has to be compiled from the indi-3rdparty repository to work with a rpi 5. I know astro-soft compiles everything from source as well, but considering that compiling this yourself doesn't take too long, if you know what you're doing, I think it is worth trying.

 

But yes, I agree, trying this script before anything else is likely the simplest solution for most people, if it works, great, you just saved a lot of time.