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Welcome to the RPi Smart Still wiki!

In order to utilize the code in this repository, you will first need to know how to install Raspbian OS on a micro SD card for a Raspberry Pi computer. If you are using a Model 3B or earlier, you must use a 32 bit version of Raspbian. A 64 bit version won't gain you anything here unless you have a Model 4 with more than 4GB of RAM. Nothing in the code here uses huge integers where a 64 bit OS would be warranted.

A "lite" OS version is preferred since this system uses its own built-in web server and web based user interface. I can't see any real problem with using a desktop version, but it's really not necessary unless you want to build a system with its own touch-screen display. Personally, I just use an old iPad Air stuck to the wall next to it that connects to this system's web server over WiFi.

You must be using a raw unaltered Raspbian OS installation beyond any pre-configuration of your network connection. SD cards are cheap, get a new one that you can dedicate for this if you still want to use your Raspberry Pi for other purposes. The code in this system isn't all that big, so you don't need a large SD card. You could probably get by with an 8GB card just fine, just use a high speed card.

While I can't guarantee compatibility with every Raspberry Pi clone out there, I can't see why it wouldn't work. I've tested it on a quad core Banana Pi BPI-M2-Zero running Armbian 23.08.0-trunk sid OS and there were no problems. Well, other than a small amount of lag caused by the little clone only having 512MB of RAM, and having to edit the 15-fastcgi-php.conf file to point to the newer PHP 8.x interpreter that they install.

So, with that said, you should be using a Raspberry Pi (or clone) with no less than 1GB of RAM and at least a quad core processor. This will not work well on a Pi Zero W due to its single core processor and 512MB of RAM. This system relies on 3 undercarriage daemons that read the inputs, write to the outputs, and do logic processing at the same time. Single core processors will have a severe negative impact on the reliability and accuracy.