Amount Paid: 59.00
Where purchased: Direct from Stellarmate
Payment required: Paid
Where purchased: Direct from Stellarmate
Payment required: Paid
I've been using Stellar Mate OS on my Raspberry Pi 4's for a while. I've really liked the way the OS and the software worked (you can do the same on a self rolled system) but was really appreciative of the cell phone (or tablet) app that they offered.
The one big complaint that I had with it as that it ran on the Raspberry Pi 4's. That platform is decent for a SBC setup, but is still somewhat slow and is very dependent upon SD cards to run the OS as well as do the captures.
Imagine my joy when I learned that Stellar Mate, in addition to offering a NUC platform themselves, were going to offer the OS the same way that they did with their RPi4 version.
If you are already familiar with Indi/EKOS from running your own Linux setup, you will be perfectly at home with this solution... and the topper is the fantastic mobile app they offer.
In a nutshell, this is a Kubuntu install running EKOS/Indi on an x86 platform, with all the benefits of more memory and faster drives.
I am running this setup on both an Intel NUC 11 and a BeeLink U59. The BeeLink U59 had issues with the onboard WiFi 6 adapter (not supported currently under the Linux kernel) so I had to obtain a WiFi USB adapter that was supported to provide WiFi connection.
Overall, these units are MUCH more responsive than the Raspberry Pi 4 solutions were. The only way I would go back to the RPi 4 setup is if my current NUC's go down for any reason, and it's why I keep the RPi 4 in a backup position. And when you consider the price of an RPi4 with 8GB of RAM and a decent 256GB SD card... you are getting into the price range of a Intel/AMD based NUC system.
The one big complaint that I had with it as that it ran on the Raspberry Pi 4's. That platform is decent for a SBC setup, but is still somewhat slow and is very dependent upon SD cards to run the OS as well as do the captures.
Imagine my joy when I learned that Stellar Mate, in addition to offering a NUC platform themselves, were going to offer the OS the same way that they did with their RPi4 version.
If you are already familiar with Indi/EKOS from running your own Linux setup, you will be perfectly at home with this solution... and the topper is the fantastic mobile app they offer.
In a nutshell, this is a Kubuntu install running EKOS/Indi on an x86 platform, with all the benefits of more memory and faster drives.
I am running this setup on both an Intel NUC 11 and a BeeLink U59. The BeeLink U59 had issues with the onboard WiFi 6 adapter (not supported currently under the Linux kernel) so I had to obtain a WiFi USB adapter that was supported to provide WiFi connection.
Overall, these units are MUCH more responsive than the Raspberry Pi 4 solutions were. The only way I would go back to the RPi 4 setup is if my current NUC's go down for any reason, and it's why I keep the RPi 4 in a backup position. And when you consider the price of an RPi4 with 8GB of RAM and a decent 256GB SD card... you are getting into the price range of a Intel/AMD based NUC system.
