I forgot how much fun Linux can be... not!

[TPerry]

I use mini computers (currently RPi 4's and Orange Pi 3's) to control my astro equipment... but being what they are.. they lack some since they use SD cards for their "drives" and their processors are rather weak for the number crunching needed when doing certain aspects astronomical locations via plate solving.
So, about a week ago I decided to order a "new" Intel NUC 11 to install StellarMate X OS on. This is a "paid package" that has Ubuntu 22.04 LTS as its base and then all the programs you need already installed to hook up to your capture rigs.
The NUC 11 install went great... no glitches (about a 20 minute process from start to final configuration), and a HECK of a lot faster than the RPi 4's, not to mention the Orange Pi 3's.
So, being the "brilliant person" I am... I decide to get another one.. but no, I don't want to go with what works... I want something "new" with WiFi 6. So I find the BeeLink U59 on Amazon and it gets good reviews... and it's about $140 cheaper than the NUC 11. Plop it goes into the Amazon cart and it's shortly on it's way to me.... as I greedily rub my grubby paws together waiting on another "easy" install (see where this is going yet? ).

Get it in... hook the keyboard, mouse, monitor and network cable up and then set up Windows 11 Pro on it (since it's free) and then do a recovery image. WiFi is working great. Then the fun begins. Stick the USB stick in... boot it up after setting it to boot from USB. Install goes great.... log in... huh... no WiFi connectivity notification in the network icon... only ETH. Go to set up my WiFi configurations for access.. yep, I can do that just fine.
What.. no connection still? Start reading around... surprise... Ubuntu 22.04LTS even on the latest version does not currently support the AX201 chipset that the U59 is equipped with. So, what says I to myself? No problem... I'll run out to Wally World and buy the oldest USB WiFi adapter they have, since the two older ones I own are in use elsewhere with friends that were "supposed" to buy their own around 8 months ago. They have 2 NetGear AC600's left... the other are more recent WiFi 6 capable ones... nope, don't want to go down the "new chipset" road.... already got the stone bruises on my pads of my feet from walking down that rocky WiFi 6 chipset road.

Get the new USB adapter home... plug it in.. and STILL no WiFi... seems that Ubuntu 22.04 LTS ALSO doesn't like the RealTek chipset in this adapter that's been out for about a year. Finally find resources on compiling my OWN driver from source... and once I did... I now have a working BeeLink U59... after about 5 hours compared to the 20 minutes of the NUC 11.

If I had stuck with Windows and N.I.N.A., all I would have had to fight with was the standard LONG Windows update and then a few minutes of installing the program.
But I found that when I'm using battery power, the systems running Linux seem to be a lot easier on the power (when working) than Windows has been.

And this is one of the reasons that Linux still hasn't taken over the desktop world... the large majority of society would not (and many could not) go to the level I had to to get a simple stinking WiFi signal... which for me, when my equipment is in the back yard about 75 feet from the house, cable is not handy.

At least the fun resulted in creation of a guide article for my site.

 

[wedgar]

I use mini computers (currently RPi 4's and Orange Pi 3's) to control my astro equipment... but being what they are.. they lack some since they use SD cards for their "drives" and their processors are rather weak for the number crunching needed when doing certain aspects astronomical locations via plate solving.
So, about a week ago I decided to order a "new" Intel NUC 11 to install StellarMate OS X on. This is a "paid package" that has Ubuntu 22.04 LTS as its base and then all the programs you need already installed to hook up to your capture rigs.
The NUC 11 install went great... no glitches (about a 20 minute process from start to final configuration), and a HECK of a lot faster than the RPi 4's, not to mention the Orange Pi 3's.
So, being the "brilliant person" I am... I decide to get another one.. but no, I don't want to go with what works... I want something "new" with WiFi 6. So I find the BeeLink U59 on Amazon and it gets good reviews... and it's about $140 cheaper than the NUC 11. Plop it goes into the Amazon cart and it's shortly on it's way to me.... as I greedily rub my grubby paws together waiting on another "easy" install (see where this is going yet? ).

Get it in... hook the keyboard, mouse, monitor and network cable up and then set up Windows 11 Pro on it (since it's free) and then do a recovery image. WiFi is working great. Then the fun begins. Stick the USB stick in... boot it up after setting it to boot from USB. Install goes great.... log in... huh... no WiFi connectivity notification in the network icon... only ETH. Go to set up my WiFi configurations for access.. yep, I can do that just fine.
What.. no connection still? Start reading around... surprise... Ubuntu 22.04LTS even on the latest version does not currently support the AX201 chipset that the U59 is equipped with. So, what says I to myself? No problem... I'll run out to Wally World and buy the oldest USB WiFi adapter they have, since the two older ones I own are in use elsewhere with friends that were "supposed" to buy their own around 8 months ago. They have 2 NetGear AC600's left... the other are more recent WiFi 6 capable ones... nope, don't want to go down the "new chipset" road.... already got the stone bruises on my pads of my feet from walking down that rocky WiFi 6 chipset road.

Get the new USB adapter home... plug it in.. and STILL no WiFi... seems that Ubuntu 22.04 LTS ALSO doesn't like the RealTek chipset in this adapter that's been out for about a year. Finally find resources on compiling my OWN driver from source... and once I did... I now have a working BeeLink U59... after about 5 hours compared to the 20 minutes of the NUC 11.

If I had stuck with Windows and N.I.N.A., all I would have had to fight with was the standard LONG Windows update and then a few minutes of installing the program.
But I found that when I'm using battery power, the systems running Linux seem to be a lot easier on the power (when working) than Windows has been.

And this is one of the reasons that Linux still hasn't taken over the desktop world... the large majority of society would not (and many could not) go to the level I had to to get a simple stinking WiFi signal... which for me, when my equipment is in the back yard about 75 feet from the house, cable is not handy.

At least the fun resulted in creation of a guide article for my site.

That would be frustrating…

 

[TPerry]

That would be frustrating…

Beyond... think you are "saving" money... but if you count the time (and the additional parts cost) into the equation... you end up it costing you WELL more than it would have if you would have simply bought another unit like the one that worked.
The only reason I purchased the BeeLink is it uses a "standard" 5.5mmx2.1mm power plug and the Intel NUC uses a (still somewhat standard) 5.5mmx2.5mm plug. With the power supply equipment I have, it's pretty much standardize don 5.5mmx2.1mm... so the Intel NUC was an outlier and needed a special cable for the PPADV power supply. Now that I have it running (and documented via an article in case I need to "do it again" and is also one of the reasons I went "outside the norm"), I'm not that unhappy with the little BeeLink U59. In it's Windows 11 Pro dressing, it was a fairly responsive unit... it's just that Linux tends to lag behind Windows/MacOS on having the "latest & greatest" drivers... mainly because much of it depends upon open source.

 

[eva2000]

Exactly why my 24/7 work PCs are all still Windows based

 

[duderuud]

Linux can be extremely fast and stable buy setting it up can be more involved.

Hardware support still isn't as good as Windows too, as you experienced first hand

 

[TPerry]

Exactly why my 24/7 work PCs are all still Windows based

Yeah, Windows worked fine on it... other than the standard "take forever to install all the updates". And N.I.N.A. is a great Windows package... but I'm used to StellarMate and really don't want to have to learn a whole new software. Having enough fun learning PixInSight and girding up for battle with it each time I open it.
I still may get another NUC of some type to play with N.I.N.A. on.

Linux can be extremely fast and stable buy setting it up can be more involved.

Yep, that's one of the reasons I like Linux for a desktop... it works better than windows does on the lower end/older equipment, so it's easy enough to extend the life of a 8 year old computer and still have a reasonably "snappy" machine. And generally those older computers are well supported.

 

[Dragapult]

I've generally had good luck with desktop Linux in recent years. Ubuntu is also my preferred distro and most of the past few machines I've installed it on have had everything work out of the box. In most cases, I'll need to install a good amount of software to get the exact setup I want (including most of the web-safe fonts). I used to have issues similar to what was described with Wi-Fi cards, but that was around the mid-00s for me.

 

[Suzanne O]

Get a mac! Problem solved

 

[TPerry]

Get a mac! Problem solved

Got one (and a Studio on order).. along with 2 Surface Books, 1 Surface Pro 3, 1 Surface Pro (original), 1 Toshiba Portege, 1 HP Mini 311 (32 bit linux an WiFi works), 1 Asus EEePC (32 bit Linux and WiFi works) as well as 4 Optiplex desktops 7070 micros. The problem is.. they simply won't work for this with the possible exception of the 7070's but they would have to be tripod mounted. A that's why the NUC's were purchased and StellarMate X OS is basically Kubuntu and is what I use as my capture program.

or this

It's a size factor and how/where they are mounted issue. The NUC 11 is mounted directly to the telescope mount ring base itself (have to fabricate a new mount to get it all above the scope and not off one side). The BeeLink (the problematic child) hangs off the tripod and I have to deal with all the extra wires (until I figure how to mount it on the scope also).

So no.. getting a Mac is not the answer.

For desktop, I really need to get something with a fast GPU, at least 256GB RAM and a few TB of SSD storage, and it can be either a Linux or Windows box (the Mac stuff that would be near is WAY more expensive - it was around $10K USD)... The Studio is a "retirement" gift after doing several years of IT work for a local clinic.
Using my current rig (Windows 11 Pro 64GB RAM, 2TB NVMe 4 M2 SSD) I'm 4 hours into stacking 684 captures... and it's not even completed the linear defects correction process... after that, there are about another 25 steps it has to go through (so about 9-12 hours of processing).

 

[TPerry]

I've generally had good luck with desktop Linux in recent years. Ubuntu is also my preferred distro and most of the past few machines I've installed it on have had everything work out of the box.

StellarMate X OS is based upon Kubuntu using the 22.04 LTS line of Ubuntu. The problem is was the WiFi chipset is a new cheap Intel based one that is coming installed as a WiFi 6 chipset on many of the new Intel based NUC's. I think I read somewhere it only cost the manufacturer something like $5-$8 to actually produce it.
It's simply a downfall of Linux.. it's dependent for most drivers on the public to code it. Very few manufacturers really worry that much about it since Linux is a decent size user base, but Windows is much larger and is normally what most will use. Those that tend to use Linux can usually figure out a workaround to at least get WiFi to working, even if it's getting different USB WiFi adapter.

 

[Suzanne O]

A mac actually works like your windows pc.

 

[Dragapult]

Most of the time I run Linux in a VM instead of a native install. As I use it more as a hobbyist than full-time. And a VM usually takes care of any hardware issues.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Get the new USB adapter home... plug it in.. and STILL no WiFi... seems that Ubuntu 22.04 LTS ALSO doesn't like the RealTek chipset in this adapter that's been out for about a year. Finally find resources on compiling my OWN driver from source... and once I did... I now have a working BeeLink U59... after about 5 hours compared to the 20 minutes of the NUC 11.

I feel your pain.

I have an Intel NUC on which I run Roon Server. With Win11? Install the package, start it, done.

I set up the NUC to dual boot to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Roon has a package for Ubuntu and it runs a bit leaner there, yet after fussing with it and wasting over two full days (combined) on it, I could never get it to work properly. Roon Server starts up fine. But due to some networking strangeness in Ubuntu, none of the network devices could find Roon Server. Others have gotten it to work. Roon also offers their own "OS" of sorts--a heavily customized Linux which runs only the Roon Server (called ROCK) but I don't want to tie up an entire NUC for one process. I have a couple of other small server processes running on it, as the NUC itself works more like a network appliance the way I have it set up. (I had almost thought of setting it up as a headless Windows server, but didn't have the time to fuss with it.)

Even in the past when I've tried running Ubuntu as a desktop OS, I spent more time fussing with settings to get things to work than I did getting actual work done. Like you say, time is money, and how many productive hours have I lost messing around with it? Some...but I was smart enough to cut my losses and stop using it for serious work. Last time I used Ubuntu, I used it in a virtual machine on my Win10 desktop. Which was perfect since I could do some of the necessary work in Ubuntu, then hop back to my familiar desktop to access the files I'd generated and continue working. (WSL would not work with the script I was running.)

I like Ubuntu for my web projects--I run some forums and sites off of three servers (one web server, one database, one Elasticsearch) and it's rare I ever have an issue. But in the home? I might repurpose an ancient computer with Ubuntu for a simple task like web browsing but otherwise, it's too fussy for day-to-day work.

 

[TPerry]

A mac actually works like your windows pc.

As I said.. got one and another on order.. so well aware of how it "works" (in fact, this reply is being typed on one)... but it doesn't fit the use scenario and the software used for captures is not reliable on the Mac. The nearest that would work would be a Mac Mini and it's larger than the NUC's and would take even more work.

 

[TPerry]

I might repurpose an ancient computer with Ubuntu for a simple task like web browsing but otherwise, it's too fussy for day-to-day work.

I've got the HP Mini and Asus EEPc running Peppermint and an old version of Mint (both 32 bit). It's gotten harder to find a decent 32 bit version of Linux with desktop. They work great for VNC control of the NUC's when they are in their headless mode. The bad thing about them is I have to have AC power available if I want to use them more than an hour or so since the batteries are LONG toast.
The NUC 11 is known to work with Ubuntu... this BeeLink U59 is a fairly new revision and not a lot of people run Linux on it yet. It's funny how hard it is when you live in the sticks to find a USB WiFi adapter that will work. None of them show "Linux certified".

 

[Wildcat Media]

The bad thing about them is I have to have AC power available if I want to use them more than an hour or so since the batteries are LONG toast.

Is that why you were looking at LiFePO4 batteries? I saw this morning that Anker Solix has battery backup solutions but the cost is probably way overkill for what you need.

I have a completely unrelated application that I want to try a LiFePO4 battery with. But it's a bit complex and I may wait until next Spring to work it out.

 

[TPerry]

Is that why you were looking at LiFePO4 batteries?

Nope... I use the LiFePO4 battery in a "home made" battery box to run my astro rigs with. This was the first revision of it and it's changed quite a bit (more power adapters added - 5.5x2.5mm, 5.5x2.1mm, USB 5v for RPI use and the big car adapter ones removed for a slimmer version with no switches on them).

The Surface Books (which use RealVNC to connect with) will run about 6 hours each on a full charge, a little longer if I shut the lid when I'mnot using them (and I carry both) along with about 5 hours for the Toshiba. I carry all 3 in case I have an "oh-crap" moment and drop one or knock it off the table.
By adding those 5.5x2.5mm power ports, I can actually get a setup that will allow me to run either the Toshiba or the Books from the battery box also.

 

[Jake B.]

A mac actually works like your windows pc.

A mac is just as similar to a windows PC as a PC with Linux installed, not sure what your point is

 

[Wildcat Media]

Nope... I use the LiFePO4 battery in a "home made" battery box to run my astro rigs with. This was the first revision of it and it's changed quite a bit (more power adapters added - 5.5x2.5mm, 5.5x2.1mm, USB 5v for RPI use and the big car adapter ones removed for a slimmer version with no switches on them).

Nice rig! I figured you were running some of your astro rigs with the battery. My application wouldn't be quite as involved as that (I'm only looking to run a single device when vehicle power is cut off), but I need to design in a few additional features before it would work for my purposes and figure out a case to hold everything safely.

 

[TPerry]

On my mini PC's I'm having some good results with the mini PC's and Kubuntu (which is the base of Stellarmate X OS).

The processing beats the crud out of the Raspberry Pi 4s I was using. They were really slow on doing plate solving when compared to the mini PCs.
Once kernel 6.4 hits normal distribution my BeeLink may recognize it and I can remove the USB WiFi adapter from the U59.