I would definitely like some guidance on running INDI as root or via command line to test (I've only run INDI via Ekos's visual interface). Perhaps this is important, but I currently only run INDI locally on the RPi I was able to run kstars as root, but not sure if that means ekos and then indi are run as root as I click through the interface. I can say that did not resolve the issue.
I do have a powered hub when I have everything running in the field or driveway, but for right now have the EFW plugged directly into the RPi.
As for the initialization tool - I'm not seeing a good way to run it under linux. It has a driver for mac (java) as well as various windows executables.
I'll also add that I know my way around linux, but perhaps just a little bit above the average novice..