Radxa Zero 3E 2GB DietPi OS

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I was able to run AllSky on Radxa Zero 3 Ethernet version with 2GB of RAM and PoE hat.
I choose DietPi OS, Debian Bookworm for ARMv8.
The camera is an ZWO ASI 178MM.

I'm still testing, but apparently all seems to work apart a problem with overlay described below.
Before installing AllSky software, following official instructions, I manually installed these packages:

# apt install git build-essential python3-pip python3-setuptools python3-dev
# apt install i2c-tools libgpiod-dev python3-libgpiod

$ python3 -m pip config set global.break-system-packages true
$ pip3 install adafruit-blinka gpiozero

(please note above the difference from commands given by root and by user)

At the moment, the major problem regards overlay.
Once I set overlay information in Overlay Editor, they don't really appear on the image. If I try to get a preview clicking on "Display Sample Data", I get this error: "Error generating sample data. Missing file: /home/dietpi/allsky/tmp/overlaydebug.txt, Try later". Effectively, that file isn't present in that directory.
If I create an empty file and click again, the error doesn't appear anymore, but the button became red and stuck there with no action at all.

Any idea about solving this issue?

Thanks, Andrea

P.S. I installed some modules, but not yet tested, especially the ones that involve I/O.

[Alex-developer]

I would set the debug level to 4 and then check /var/log/allsky/log for errors.

It looks like the overlay module isnt running for some reason, that generates the overlaydebug.txt file

[EricClaeys]

@Alex-developer,
I did a "git clone" of your "variables" branch and got the same error:

Error generating sample data. Missing file: /home/pi/allsky/tmp/overlaydebug.txt

I copied the file from allsky-OLD and got a bunch of other errors so I backed out the branch. I wanted to see the changes...

[Alex-developer]

@Alex-developer, I did a "git clone" of your "variables" branch and got the same error:

Don use the variables branch as its not useable. Its just me keeping he code safe whilst I work on it !

Arron's reply below is spot on and should sort the issue

[adicon]

Oh! Thanks. I found at least an error, don't know if it is correlated with my problem. I'll dig it tomorrow. Here is the log:

2025-01-12T22:44:55.998523+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]: Executing sunwait poll exit angle -6.0000 40.51N 14.16E > /dev/null
2025-01-12T22:44:56.021121+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]: -----
2025-01-12T22:44:56.021996+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]: STARTING EXPOSURE at: 2025-01-12 22:44:56   @ 8.13 ms (0.01 sec)
2025-01-12T22:44:56.023309+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]:       > Doing initial usleep(508,134) for exposure time 8,134.
2025-01-12T22:44:56.965453+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]:       > Did usleep(406) 622 times in loop for total usleep() of 760,666us
2025-01-12T22:44:57.003252+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]:       > Time to take exposure=977,770 us, diff_us=969,636
2025-01-12T22:44:57.006471+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]:   > GOT IMAGE @ mean 0.316, (auto) gain 255.
2025-01-12T22:44:57.008199+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]:   > Good image: mean 0.316 within range of 0.280 to 0.320 +++++++++
2025-01-12T22:44:57.009032+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]:   > Sleeping: 60.0 sec
2025-01-12T22:44:57.009547+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]:   > Saving NIGHT image 'image-20250112224456.jpg'
2025-01-12T22:44:57.216407+01:00 DietPi allsky[3633]:   > Image took 203.0 ms to save (average 209.3 ms).
2025-01-12T22:44:57.232326+01:00 DietPi allsky[3859]: saveImage.sh NIGHT /home/dietpi/allsky/tmp/image-20250112224456.jpg DATE=20250112 TIME=224456 AUTOEXPOSURE=0 sAUTOEXPOSURE= EXPOSURE_US=8134 sEXPOSURE=8.13 ms (0.01 sec) AUTOGAIN=1 sAUTOGAIN=(auto) GAIN=255 TEMPERATURE_C=27 TEMPERATURE_F=81 BIN=1 FLIP=none BIT_DEPTH=8 DARKFRAME=0 eOVERLAY=1 AUTOUSB=1 USB=50
2025-01-12T22:45:06.378438+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]: Traceback (most recent call last):
2025-01-12T22:45:06.378979+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:   File "/home/dietpi/allsky/scripts/flow-runner.py", line 60, in <module>
2025-01-12T22:45:06.379407+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:     import allsky_shared as shared
2025-01-12T22:45:06.380051+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:   File "/home/dietpi/allsky/scripts/modules/allsky_shared.py", line 21, in <module>
2025-01-12T22:45:06.380384+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:     import board
2025-01-12T22:45:06.381035+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:   File "/home/dietpi/.local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/board.py", line 288, in <module>
2025-01-12T22:45:06.381482+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:     from adafruit_blinka.board.radxa.radxazero3 import *
2025-01-12T22:45:06.382014+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:   File "/home/dietpi/.local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/adafruit_blinka/board/radxa/radxazero3.py", line 6, in <module>
2025-01-12T22:45:06.382275+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:     from adafruit_blinka.microcontroller.rockchip.rk3566 import pin
2025-01-12T22:45:06.382402+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:   File "/home/dietpi/.local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/adafruit_blinka/microcontroller/rockchip/rk3566/pin.py", line 12, in <module>
2025-01-12T22:45:06.382620+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:     GPIO0_A0 = Pin((0, 0))
2025-01-12T22:45:06.382777+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:                ^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-01-12T22:45:06.382906+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:   File "/home/dietpi/.local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/adafruit_blinka/microcontroller/generic_linux/libgpiod/libgpiod_pin_1_x.py", line 30, in __init__
2025-01-12T22:45:06.384129+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:     self._chip = gpiod.Chip(str(pin_id[0]), gpiod.Chip.OPEN_BY_NUMBER)
2025-01-12T22:45:06.384713+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]:                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-01-12T22:45:06.385061+01:00 DietPi allsky[3893]: PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

[aaronwmorris]

I think most allsky installs start with Raspbian, which means there is some configuration that is already in place that allows access to gpio pins and I2C/SPI.

In order to access the GPIO pins, you need to have access to the /dev/gpiomem device. On Debian, this usually means you need to be in the gpio group. You should also make sure you are in the i2c and spi groups for good measure.

sudo usermod -a -G gpio "$USER"
sudo usermod -a -G i2c "$USER"
sudo usermod -a -G spi "$USER"
# reboot

If that does not work, some distributions need a udev rule to set the permissions on the gpiomem device. This will set permissions for the dialout group to access GPIO pins.

sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/99-gpio.rules <<EOF
SUBSYSTEM=="gpio", KERNEL=="gpiochip*", GROUP="dialout", MODE="0660", TAG+="uaccess"
EOF

sudo usermod -a -G dialout "$USER"
# reboot

[adicon]

@aaronwmorris Thank you very much to address me to the solution!

I have had to enable 12c and gpio on my board, to do so, I modified my /boot/dietpiEnv.txt file with my distribution correct prefix, so the file now looks like:

...
overlay_prefix=rk3588
overlays=spi0-m1-cs0-spidev
param_spidev_spi_bus=0
param_spidev_max_freq=10000000

and added missing groups to /etc/group (for me spi and gpio), then configured UDEV:

echo -e 'SUBSYSTEM=="i2c-dev", GROUP="i2c", MODE="0660"\nSUBSYSTEM=="spidev", GROUP="spi", MODE="0660"\nSUBSYSTEM=="gpio", KERNEL=="gpiochip*", GROUP="gpio", MODE="0660", TAG+="uaccess"' > /etc/udev/rules.d/99-i2c_spi_group.rules

once rebooted, I have correct devices and group permission:

crw-rw---- 1 root gpio 254, 0 Jan 13 23:59  /dev/gpiochip0
crw-rw---- 1 root gpio 254, 1 Jan 13 23:59  /dev/gpiochip1
crw-rw---- 1 root gpio 254, 2 Jan 13 23:59  /dev/gpiochip2
crw-rw---- 1 root gpio 254, 3 Jan 13 23:59  /dev/gpiochip3
crw-rw---- 1 root gpio 254, 4 Jan 13 23:59  /dev/gpiochip4
crw-rw---- 1 root gpio 254, 5 Jan 13 23:59  /dev/gpiochip5
crw-rw---- 1 root i2c   89, 0 Jan 13 23:59  /dev/i2c-0
crw-rw---- 1 root i2c   89, 3 Jan 13 23:59  /dev/i2c-3
crw-rw---- 1 root i2c   89, 6 Jan 13 23:59  /dev/i2c-6
crw-rw---- 1 root spi  153, 0 Jan 13 23:59  /dev/spidev0.0

Finally, automagically overlay appeared on the image and also a lot of system variables in Overlay Editor - Variable Manager :-)

Prior to do so, according to what is written in this guide: https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-orangepi-linux/orange-pi-pc-setup
I installed these Python packets, too:

$ pip3 install gpiod

# apt install -y python3-smbus python-dev-is-python3 i2c-tools

[adicon]

I can confirm that with my installation I can also complete all the night tasks: timelaps, keogram, startrails

At the moment I have some glitch with SBC sensors and CPU throttle, this is because AllSky software use a piece of software that is only for Raspberry devices.
I should rewrite from ground up that layer, but it's more simple to declare some new custom variables. Eventually I'll update this post with a script.