FYI: Alternatives to Raspberry Pi for this hobby

UPDATE - March 14, 2023:
Recently Flightradar24 has upgraded version from 1.0.25-3 to 1.0.34-0

Current instructions are as follows

STEP-4: Next install fr24feed

First determine your Machine’s Architecture / OS by output of following command

uname -m

If output of above command shows your Machine / OS is i386, use OPTION (1) below.

If output of above command shows your Machine / OS is x86_64 OR amd64, use OPTION (2) below.

 

OPTION (1): If your Machine / OS is i386

wget https://repo-feed.flightradar24.com/linux_x86_binaries/fr24feed_1.0.34-0_i386.deb  

sudo dpkg -i fr24feed_1.0.34-0_i386.deb 

sudo fr24feed --signup

 

OPTION (2): If your Machine / OS is x86_64 OR amd64

wget https://repo-feed.flightradar24.com/linux_x86_64_binaries/fr24feed_1.0.34-0_amd64.deb 

sudo dpkg -i fr24feed_1.0.34-0_amd64.deb 

sudo fr24feed --signup

 

NOTE:
When running command “sudo fr24feed --signup”, after entering your details, you will see following message. Please say yes to autoconfig option

We have detected that you already have a dump1090 instance running. We can therefore automatically configure the FR24 feeder to use existing receiver configuration, or you can manually configure all the parameters.

Would you like to use autoconfig (yes/no)$: yes

sudo systemctl restart fr24feed 

sudo fr24feed-status 

# To check/modify configuration, edit this file 
sudo nano /etc/fr24feed.ini

 

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This ‘silicon greybeard’ was never a fan, especially after they bought Digital Equipment Corp (DEC/Compaq) and eviscreated the company and product line.

I started looking for alternatives to RPi over a year ago at the start of this thread. I took a risk on trying HP (T520 at the time) based on 1) availability in the recycle marketplace 2) PRICE (I’m cheap), 3) low power consumption, and 4) will it appear to work for me. Spent a LOT of time going through the most excellent collection of details about repurposing thin clients and figured I would not be out a lot of money (just under USD50 at the time) in a compromise to my bias. I’m pleased with the results for my use of them (not a fan of the incarnation that’s called “HP” for many years). Some might even consider HP’s use of 1.6mm SSD hold-down screws “cute” :crazy_face: (the rest of the industry uses 2mm); I saw it as an opportunity to reach for my MacGyver skills when needing to add SSD missing from a rescued thin client…

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My complaint with HP is that they were once a world class test equipment company until the financial clowns took control. Then they spun off the test equipment to Agilent and decided to concentrate on PC’s (gasp). But that’s what happens when you have MBAs run the place. It’s a story thats happened over and over in the US.

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Here’s another alternative to Raspberry Pi: Thunderberry5 Qualcomm based sbc. Not quite available yet. Might actually be over-powered for ADS-B receiver.

https://www.techpowerup.com/306044/makemyboards-thunderberry5-qualcomm-based-sbc-looks-to-take-on-raspberry-pi-4

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Well after an evening of playing around I’ve managed to get a HP thin client up and running as a feeder station.

Getting them was the easy part, they were decommsioned by one of my customers and in exchange for a cake i could get 2 TC’s with the power adapters. Added 4 GB to both of them (had some spares lying around) and started on my adventure this night :slight_smile:

One of them is up and running now, the other serves as a backup in case something fails but can be imaged and equiped with software faster now.

  • HP Thin Client T620 8GB RAM 16 GB storage on an SSD.
  • First had to remove the Setup password (by pulling the correct jumper, booting up, shutting down and then the BIOS was accessible again).
    -Started of with Debian 11 but ran into issues with the network interfaces not being enabled ( Both wired LAN and wireless LAN).
    Issues with the Broadcom chipset and not being able to get the installation to a finish.

Opted for Dietpi after that, again issues with the network interfaces but after setting a static IP on the LAN port via Dietpi-config the system was communicating with the outside world.
Updated all needed packages including WLAN but opted to go for a LAN only connection.
After that I installed Piaware and the other packages as described here

Set the system up at the intended place (yet another test system :wink: ) and connected power and network again.
Booted up in a matter of seconds and now Flightaware site 12 is up and running for testing purposes.
It;s going to be a flightaware only system ( not adding it to FR24 or other sites) so I can see how it performs.

Thank you guys @abcd567 @dvsvejk @AhrBee @wiedehopf for your insights,posts and packages in this thread, all I needed to get up and running was here.

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Welcome to the club. I’ve had issues in the past with Broadcom “non-free” firmware and Debian-based distros, too. My solution was to use a USB wireless adapter for install/first boot, then install the Broadcom firmware manually via apt to get the adapters working.

This post summarizes well changes which look to incorporate non-free firmware in the standard Debian installer starting with the upcoming Bookworm. As you have a spare thin client you could try the Debian Installer Bookworm Alpha 2 and let us know if it works installing the needed firmware :grinning:

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I’ll give it a try on the spare TC somewhere in the upcoming week :wink:
I’ll be reporting the results here :slight_smile:

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I have an old (2006) Dell laptop that has a Broadcom wireless card. It runs Debian 11 and I had to jump through the normal hoops to get the firmware installed.

As a test, I ran the Debian 12 installer up to the network discovery part to see if it would detect the wireless card. It did not - just eth0. I suspect the fine vintage of my hardware may have something to do with it. You may have better luck with a “newer” thin client.

The exercise was not a total loss, I did learn the installer will recogize a tethered Android phone as a hotspot. So on top of a wired or wireless USB adapter, the phone could work as a temporary internet connection to get the firmware installed.

I’ve installed Debian 12 Bookworn Alpha2 on the spare Thin client.

Downloading was a breeze, the creation of the USB stick with Rufus took 1,5 hours :wink: so get some coffee in between :slight_smile:

Used the expert mode so I could force is to the efi partion when the installation finished.

Networking is better but not complete.
Eth0 is detected and installed, it obtains a DHCP adress so that went better then the Debian 11 install.
WLAN was not installed and not available

installed LSHW to check what hardware was detected.

Now to the catch :wink: the LAN hardware is Realtek based and the WLAN hardware is operating on a Broadcom BCM43228 chipset.
WLAN was not installed on the initial setup.

However there is a workaround available in order to get the Broadcom hardware working.
This is applicable for the following chipsets (so maybe even for your old laptop as well)

Supported chipsets:

  • BCM4306/3 (chip revision 3 only);
  • BCM4311 (NOT PCI Id 14e4:4313);
  • BCM4312;
  • BCM43131;
  • BCM4318;
  • BCM4321 (only partial support, not all versions tested);
  • BCM43217;
  • BCM4322 (only partial support for some versions, not all versions tested);
  • BCM43222 (not all versions tested);
  • BCM43224 (not all versions tested);
  • BCM43225;
  • BCM43227;
  • BCM43228;
  • BCM4331;
  • BCM47xx (detection not reliable, may not support all versions).

Step 1 : download package b43-fwcutter (1:019-8) from Debian -- Details of package b43-fwcutter in bookworm
Step 2: download package firmware-b43-installer (1:019-8) from Debian -- Details of package firmware-b43-installer in bookworm
Put the two .deb packages on a USB stick and connect it to the Thin client.
The path for USB is in /media, so you will have to search there what’s the path.

The fwcutter package should be installed first, there’s a dependency on this package for the firmware package.
If you don’t install the cutter package the firmware package will fail due to a missing dependency

Step 3 Install the package b43-fwcutter (1:019-8) on the Thinclient

sudo dpkg -i /path/to/your/usb/device/DEB_PACKAGE

Step 4 Install the package firmware-b43-installer (1:019-8) on the Thin client

sudo dpkg -i /path/to/your/usb/device/DEB_PACKAGE

reboot the Thin client.

After the reboot is finished your Wi-Fi adapter is avalable and can be connected.

Now when there’s a Debian 12 Piaware and Dump1090-fa availble then I will see how that installs on Debian 12, I’ll leave the installation on the system for now.

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I was thinking maybe your wifi adapter was of a version which would be handled by the new installer, but sadly you learned that is not the case. I think the Broadcom 43xx series is an edge case which can’t be handled in its current configuration. The b43-installer needing an active internet connection to function and a reboot for the card to become active sounds like it would be hard to embed in the installer. Maybe they can do it, maybe they can’t.

Glad you got it working. The wifi on my old laptop is OK, I got it working a few years ago after learning the hard way like you. Note: one can also add “non-free” to the repo and get the needed packages via Synaptic or apt install on the command line.

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Oh well it’s a nice learning curve that way :grinning:
Playing around with different hardware gets my knowledge up and with that I’m able to do a better job (I’m working in IT) and it adds to my private playgarden with all the different systems, applications and operating systems. :nerd_face:

(1) Flightaware dont make packages available except for armhf (i.e. 32-bit RPi OS).
You will have to build these packages yourself from source-code.

(2) I have tried to build dump1090-fa and Piaware on Debian 12 Bookworm amd64 machine. I could build dump1090-fa successfully, but failed to build piaware. @obj has told that the problem is with cx_Freeze. The Debian 12 uses python 3.11, while Debian 11 uses python 3.9

Kali Linux 2023.1 is based on Debian 12:
I tried on both Debian 12 and Kali Linux 2023.1, with same results.

https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/piaware-8-2-fails-to-build-on-kali-linux-2023-raspberry-pi-arm64/87352

Yes I’m following that thread where you describe the issue and the responses.
I know FA isn’t providing the package, the test setup with Dietpi is using your repository and package for flightaware and piaware.

Me installing these operating systems on the thin clients is just a venture into undiscovered territory on alternative hardware and maybe I can assist if someone runs into the same issues. Like I said without this thread I wouldn’t be able to get it running based on my knowledge :innocent:

@tomvdhorst

The problem is only with Debian 12.

If you install Debian 11, there will be no issues. The dump1090-fa and piaware can be installed using pre-build packages from my github site, or can be built directly on your thin client using automated install scripts at my github site

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Thanks, I’m aware of that, I already have one TC running with Debian 11 and your scripts :wink:
Since Debian 12 is just an Alpha release I’m not running any “ production” software on it, just trying to see what that OS brings in terms of installation and additional steps to take when it goes to a stable release.

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It has been a while since I used Rufus - it is that slow? I guess you are on Windows so that is why you used it. I was able to write the 3.7GB .iso to a USB in 15 minutes from the linux command line using “dd”.

sudo dd bs=4M if=/home/xyz/Skrivbord/debian-bookworm-DI-alpha2-i386-DVD-1.iso of=/dev/sda status=progress oflag=sync

If you decide to try it out some day, I’d suggest looking at some tutorials online beforehand. Incorrect idetification of the output path can lead to disk carnage. Defintely not a command to cut and paste without knowing what it does.

When using it with other ISO’s t works fine. It was just slow with this specific iso.

I used other programs as well, balena etcher, and windisk imager. My main computer is indeed Windows based.

My Thin Client HP 520T, 4G RAM 16G internal SSD has shut off itself twice during last week.

On investigation I found it was because of high CPU Temprature.

The Thin Client is located in an area with large glass windows, and last week it was sunny, and the sunlight entering the area made the whole area hot.

I put 4 rubber foot pads underneath to raise the thin client so that air can enter from slots below, cool it and escape from slots above. This helped to prevent lockout due to high temprature.

The OS I have installed on thin client is Debian 11 Server, i.e. during installation I have removed check marks from Debian Desktop and Gnome options. I also disabled few apps running in background which I was not using.

 

Please see below CPU temprature.
The red line shows hystorical max temp reached last week which caused unit to lockout itself.

 

 

 

abcd@debian11:~$ sudo apt install  s-tui 
abcd@debian11:~$ s-tui  

 

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Canadian $40 (US $30):
H96Max v11 Android TV Box, Rock 3318 arm64 Quad Core CPU, 4 GB ram, 32 GB emmc flash.

Transformed into an arm64 Computer with Armbian OS (Linux Bullseye)

Thanks to @yxespotter who did this first, then informed me through PM, alluring me to purchase this Canadian $40 (US $30)TV Box :slight_smile:

Hardware Specifications
Chipset : RK3318 Quad-Core 64bit Cortex-A53
GPU: Penta-Core Mali-450 Up to 750Mhz+
FLASH: EMMC 16G/32G/64G
SDRAM: 2GB/4GB DDR3

I Purchased from this Seller on Aliexpress:
https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005005033564891.html

OPTIONS

(1) 2 GB RAM 16 GB emmc
(2) 4 GB RAM 32 GB emmc
(3) 4 GB RAM 64 GB emmc

I chose option (2), a compromise between price and ram + emmc size

 

 

 

HDMI Monitor and Keyboard are required for installing and configuring Armbian OS. Followed instructions/guide for replacing Andriod OS by Armbian OS from here:

 

Installed piaware, dump1090-fa, dump978-fa, and piaware-web from here:

 

This is the Armbian OS image I used

image

Downloaded from here: https://imola.armbian.com/dl/rk3318-box/archive/

All is OK, except the on-board WiFi is not working. (the on-board wired network works OK)

To test, I plugged-in a $10 USB WiFI module which I already have for many years. With this unit, WiFi works OK.

 

 

 

 

 

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The design fits perfectly to the Quality Street antenna socket :rofl:

Checking your link it offers me the smallest one for 25 Euro only. Pretty cheap for it.

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