Let the OS battles begin

The first image that I installed on the RPi was the latest Astroberry. It was VERY easy to install as I used balenaEtcher to push out the image to it. This was on the 32GB SD card that came with the kit. The installing of the image went without a hitch.
Instead of connecting to the newly installed device via the default WiFi hotspot it creates, I simply connected a CAT cable to the ethernet port and allowed the hardwired connection to pull an IP from my router. I was then able to connect to it both via the web interface. Once I confirmed that I had web access, I moved to connecting via the Screen Sharing app on my Mac (part of the operating system).
Once I connected to Astroberry by VNC protocol, I made a few minor tweaks to the hotspot name and password, the VNC default password and the Astroberry user password.

A recommendation... once you are logged in, the very FIRST thing to do is to open a terminal session, then run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade. This will update your list of available system updates, then upgrade you to the most recent releases. I failed to so so and it resulted in some issues for me.

Once connected and logged in, I hooked up the following equipment:
ASI533MM Pro
EFW 8 position filter wheel
EQ35M equivalent mount (connected with an RS-232 Tripp Lite cable using Prolific chipset)

Upon starting KStars and going into EKOS I began to add my hardware. I was able to select what I had attached... but for some reason the EFW filter wheel was NOT being recognized when starting the system.
I messed with the system and did research and found no answers, so I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and purchase StellarMate OS since you were entitled to paid support for it and it reportedly is updated more regularly.

So, now, off we go to the Stellarmate OS install.
Needless to say, it was as painless as the Astroberry Server install. It was burned to a new SD card (a new 256GB SanDisk) using balenaEtcher. Amazingly once installed they are VERY similar in appearance. The configuration process is basically the same as Astroberry, except it uses different SSID for the WiFi hotspot and for the logins.
Same password changes were made to StellarMate OS as on Astroberry.
After getting all my settings to where I wanted them (custom desktop background, WiFI SSID changes, etc) I then proceeded to run KStars and start hooking up my equipment.
Once starting KStars and then going into the equipment setup, SHAZAM... the filter wheel was recognized.... but... uh-oh. The mount was NOT.

I reinstalled the SD card that had Astroberry after rebooting the RPi. Went through the setup process of equipment again and still had the same filter wheel issue... then, being the amazingly experienced Linux guru I am :rolleyes:, I remembered that the OS probably needed to be updated (see my earlier posted instructions). Once I did this, restarted the RPi and then logged back in, miraculously the EFW filter wheel was recognized... and then I was wondering if I had wasted the money on StellarMate OS since it, even after the base code being updated, did not recognize the Prolific chipset in the Tripp Lite RS-232 cable.

Once I confirmed that everything worked in Astroberry (Buster based OS), including my NexStar 8se and ASI585MC, I went back to chasing down the gremlins in StellarMate OS.
I figured that surely if the Prolific chipset was supported under Buster, it just HAD to be under Bullseye stable release... but OH how wrong I was.
After chasing down many leads and installing the OS new again several times, I finally decided to enter a support ticket over at StellarMate.
Now, THIS was why I didn't mind paying for the OS... shortly later Jasem Mutlaq responded to my ticket and after connecting him via TeamViewer it was finally decided to upgrade to the latest cutting edge of Bullseye using rpi-update. Be aware, this updates your RPi to the cutting edge code.. and like any version of Linux, cutting edge CAN cause bleeding. After doing this and rebooting the RPi, KStars/EKOS recognized the Prolific chipset and the mount... albeit needing the mount to use the SynScan Legacy code instead of the SynScan selection of Astroberry/Buster.
Since it was all running I had Jasem close out the ticket.
In the mean time... I had already placed an order for a new RS-232 USB -> serial cable using the FTDI chipset. Unluckily the only one in stock that I could find also had the male thread connectors (not female like I needed)... but it wasn't anything that a few appropriately sized zip ties could not solve for keeping them together.

While awaiting arrival of the FTDI chip cable, I went ahead and made a master image of the Stellarmate install that was working with Prolific chipset and reinstalled the shipping version of Stellarmate OS and then updated it. Once the new serial cable came in, I reattached all my equipment and it was all recognized.

The BIG benefit that StellarMate has over Astroberry is the kick-ass IOS app to interface with the RPi that it has. That alone is worth the cost to me, and will probably bend me towards obtaining and additional license for the 4GB RPi that I currently plan to run Astroberry on.

10/09/2022

After playing with both, I decided to go ahead and purchases 2 licenses for Stellarmate for the RPI's. You simply could not beat the app that Stellarmate OS come with, and the support you get.
One issue I did (and still) have is that if you change the default VNC password for Stellarmate, the IOS app will no longer connect through OpenVNC, telling you there is an authentication error. The same thing happens when you try to access OpenVNC via the web page of the RPi access. I have had a ticket opened with StellarMate and they could not apparently replicate the issue.. but I can easily do it on either RPi by burning a new image (which I have done several times) and simply changing the [cidoe]stellarmate[/icode] user password then changing the associated VNC password for that user using the StellerMate process of x11vnc -storepasswd mypassword /home/stellarmate/.vnc/passwd.
This has been replicated by me numerous times. I can use RealVNC or even the Mac OS Screen Sharing app and connect fine using the newly defined password. It's simply the IOS app and the web interface that apparently continues to try and use the old password as it never prompts for a new/current one.