question

riker1 avatar image
riker1 asked

recommendation raspberry with venus firmware or install on debian

Hi

I am new to this forum.

Having a victron smart shunt and want to monitor it with the raspberry.

On the PI I do have other modbus serial interfaces running to Renogy and some more smart (mobile) home features.


Also want to use some git project as solarthing on the PI.


What would you reocmmend?


using the venus firmware and do add my requirements or

install venus packages on Debian?


Thanks for guiding?


BR T


Venus OSRaspberry Pi
2 |3000

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

1 Answer
Kevin Windrem avatar image
Kevin Windrem answered ·

I don't think there's a way to bring up Venus on a Debian install. If there is, it would be lots of work that you'd need to redo with each software update.

Venus OS is a customized Linux.

It uses a dual FS boot mechanism: two bootable partitions that swap between active and backup with each software update, plus a data partition that survives a software update. Anything you install would need to be reinstalled after a Venus OS update.

It uses the BusyBox so some common commands have reduced functionality. You could probably replace BusyBox with a more capable shell.

apt is not installed. You need to use opkg to install things. wget does work also and is what I've set up for installing several packages I've written to enhance Venus.

You may need to tweak partition sizes in order to fit your added functionality.

Given these issues, adding other functionality to Venus should be possible as long as there are no conflicts between the hardware used by Venus and the apps you install. You also want to make sure you have enough processing power. Raspberry Pi 2 and 3 are currently fully supported. Raspberry Pi 4 is still being developed with full support coming as part of v2.70. I'd recommend the Pi 4 for anything that runs more than Venus at the same time.
2 |3000

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.