Recommendations sought on best latop distro for hosting klipper

General Discussion
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Basic Information:

Printer Model: n/a
MCU / Printerboard: n/a
Host / SBC: Lenovo Yoga 2-in-One laptop/touch-pad
klippy.log: n/a

I want to use kiauh to install a full klipper/fluidd stack onto a newly repurposed laptop. I typically use the Arch derivative ‘Manjaro’ as my default distro, however I get a ton of errors trying to make kiauh install stuff. I’m assuming Manjaro is not all that common, and thus no development has been done trying to make kiauh work there. It’s not essential I use Manjaro, it’s just well known to me.

What is the best distro to use for this repurposing of a still useful laptop/touch-screen pad machine?

Thanks for any insight and advice you can give.
…

2

Hi @tetra,

Please note I’ve never set up Klipper on a laptop, so this is just a guess.

With that said, I’ll tentatively recommend Debian, since that’s what Raspberry Pi OS is based on. RPi OS itself would be even better.

1 Like
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Thanks @3dcoded,

After drilling more into KIAUH’s repo, I see that as well. Good advice, and I’ll try that instead. I actually cut my teeth on Debian way, way back - on their first very distro to give away my age a bit, and I was a Debian only guy for very many years. I think their politics (and my work) ended up making me look elsewhere for a good distro to settle on. Arch, and by extension Manjaro have been great stable platforms since I switched over several years back. But it’ll be like a belated homecoming. Should be interesting. :wink:
apt-get away!

Thanks again,
T

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4

The general focus of KIAUH and the Klipper installation instructions are based on the apt-package ecosystem.

Regarding the usage of a laptop, while not being explicitly disapproved, it might pose a few additional challenges like more running background tasks or services that could be detrimental when running Klipper. The recommendation is to minimize as many additional services or background tasks as possible and only use the machine for Klipper. A few additional pointers can be found here: BRLtty / ModemManager - Services Interfering with Klipper

2 Likes
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excellent info, thanks. It will be a dedicated box simply for printing. I will disable all non-essential services. I do plan to have it driving two printers, and possibly three. From what I’ve read thus far, I can have multiple separate fluidd instances running in a non-conflicting manner, and I was hoping to be able to have multiple desktops with a fluidd instance on it’s own that I can switch between to monitor/control the printers. Does this sound to you like this might very well overwhelm the laptop’s processing or serial communications capability?

Thanks!
T

6

The “standard philosophy” of Klipper is:

  • One SBC (Single Board Computer) running the Klipper host and Moonraker.
  • A separate client device accesses the web interface and handles most of its load.

Deviations from this setup are possible and can work, but they might lead to bottlenecks or unexpected effects.

See Klipper Architecture / Ecosystem for how the individual components interact. You will need multiple instances of:

  • The Klipper host application.
  • Moonraker.

Each instance requires individual connection endpoints, meaning Unix Domain Sockets between the respective Klipper instance and its Moonraker instance. One web interface can manage multiple printers, but if accessed on the same device, the load will also burden that device.

KIAUH greatly facilitates the setup.

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