Quirky Xerus 8.1.4 for Raspberry Pi2 and 3

[BarryK]

The special feature was provided by the laggards at Ubuntu who have not, as far as I can tell, bothered to build/release any armhf packages for 16.04. The armhf section of the repository appears to be empty!

I don't know why Ubuntu have done it this way, but they do have armhf DEBs here:

http://ports.ubuntu.com/pool/

The Puppy Package Manager accesses this repo.

[amj]

aaah! ... Thank you.

[don570]

Pupmenu 5.1.1 is very useful for launching favorite apps but I noticed a bug when launching libre office .
I explain it on the developer's site
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 220#937220

[don570]

Added right click menu items --> libre office, make pet, inkscape

[Olle]

Found and tried this during X-mas:
https://files.devuan.org/devuan_jessie_beta/embedded/

Nice! Could Devuan be a base for 64bit Quirky for Pi3?

Best wishes for 2017! Olle

[amj]

Having built myself a system that allows me to do all the things I have previously been doing on alpha4/zap6 systems (and in the case of web browsing, with noticeably better results) I turned my attention to the new functionality that QX814 has to offer.

Specifically I been trying to see what I can do with SimpleVP.

I'm inclined to begin with a question: What does the 'simple' mean in SimpleVP? Does it mean simple to use, or that it only performs simple functions, or something else I've not thought of.

The really important thing about SimpleVP is that we now have a quirky interface to omxplayer. That's much needed.

But at the moment it's a shell over three command-line media players. The user tells SimpleVP what operation is to be performed and that instruction is packaged and passed on to one of the command-line players.

At that point the simplicity starts to unravel because there is no uniformity of response from the three players. Each player interprets the command input in it's own subtly different way and according to it's own capabilities. So I find myself thinking that worked the last time round ... not working now ... guess I was using a different player last time ... which one was it ... can't remember. Simplicity requires uniform response to uniform input.

VLC has a well developed command line interface. To kick off my audio playlist a simple cvlc --random file:///mnt/mmcblk0p3/Audio does the trick. But without the GUI I have no output telling me which track is playing, no chance to update the tag information while the song is playing, etc.

I've not used a command-line FFmpeg before but I'm finding FFplay useful. I like the fact that you can navigate through a long video just by clicking on the screen and it plays the mpeg and wmv formats (which omxplayer refuses). Since I have Xfe file manager installed, I've associated all the common video types (avi, mp4, mkv, etc) to ffplay. So from the file manager I'm double-clicking to launch video files into FFplay, and then clicking the screen to navigate through those videos. That is simple and it works fairly well.

But omxplayer is the main item here. I'm curious about the following: When I launch omxplayer via SimpleVP I see a scroll bar down the full left margin of the screen, with the rest of the screen blanked. If I run omxplayer from a console there is no scroll bar and only the window that omxplayer is using is blanked, not the whole screen.

I made the mistake of using SimpleVP to pass an entire video playlist (i.e folder) to omxplayer in fullscreen mode. It worked OK ... until I decided I wanted to stop it. I typed "q". The video stopped. SimpleVP sent the next video through to omxplayer. I typed "q" again and again SimpleVP kicked off next video in the playlist. Because the whole screen is blanked there is no access to the SimpleVP control bar. The only way to exit the playlist was to press "q" repeatedly until the playlist was exhausted. It was a playlist of 189 pop-videos.

The keyboard commands to control omxplayer (1/2 to change speed, i/o to move between chapters, space/p to pause and the arrow keys for short and long seek, etc) all work well. It's not clear to me how these command reach omxplayer. Do they go directly to the player or are they routed through SimpleVP? There has to be some way to exit a playlist when omxplayer is in full screen mode. Does that mean SimpleVP examining each keystroke that comes in, discarding junk but also recognising pseudo-commands such as 'exit playlist'.

Having three media players to choose from is fun. It opens up lots of possibilities. Each player has it's own strengths and weaknesses. But for the moment I've decided to is to run VLC via it's own command-line interface, FFplay via the file manager and use SimpleVP to only control omxplayer. That approach seems simple to me.

[don570]

Forum member Radky reported that libre office center desktop file
will work correctly with pupmenu utility if small change is made

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 380#937380

________________________________________________

[amj]

The VLC built into QX814 announces itself as VLC 2.2.4 Weatherwax. It initialises with the remote controle interface.

As a command line player via the cvlc interface it behaves well. I've seen that for version 2.2.4 there is now a vlc-plugin-qt under development. The traditional VLC gui available as a plugin. I downloaded it from the sid repository and installed it just out of curiosity. I needed 11 packages (the plugin plus 10 dependencies).

So for future Quirky Xerus builds, I am wondering about the feasibility of adding in the hooks that would make it possible for users who would like a traditional gui (in addition to the simpleVP interface) to:
- install the plugin
- and then invoke it via a vlc -I qt command or some equivalent mechanism?

[don570]

deleted

[Laie]

Barry writes that this Puppy is made für an 8GB-SD-Card.
Is it possible to use a 32GB-Card or will that fail?

edit:
I should have read the instructions more carefully.
I'll give it a try

[don570]

Barry writes that this Puppy is made für an 8GB-SD-Card.
Is it possible to use a 32GB-Card or will that fail?

No problem installing the operating system,
however if you want to use the entire card then you will have to use gparted app. You can make another partition or else.....

Extending the size of a partition is possible as well if you use another linux distro.

_____________________________________________________

[BarryK]

Barry writes that this Puppy is made für an 8GB-SD-Card.
Is it possible to use a 32GB-Card or will that fail?

No problem installing the operating system,
however if you want to use the entire card then you will have to use gparted app. You can make another partition or else.....

Extending the size of a partition is possible as well if you use another linux distro.

_____________________________________________________

It is supposed to resize to fill the partition. There is a checkbox in QuickSetup, that you see the first time you boot Quirky.
Or, rerun QuickSetup from the Setup menu.

Except, some people have reported not getting that resize checkbox.

We are trying to chase down the reason for that over in the SlaQ x86_64 thread:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 128#939128

So, you can use a 16- or 32-GB drive, no problem. The resizing works for me. At this stage I don't know why not for some others.

One thing that comes to mind, is somewhere there may be a locale problem. We have had problems with maths in the past, where some locales use a "," instead of a "." for the decimal point.

You can see what the "Expand partition to fill drive" checkbox is supposed to look like in QuickSetup:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 010#939010

[Laie]

I have a problem getting started:
I have unpacked the quirky...img.xz-File with that unxz-command onto the sd-card. It seems to have worked, I read:

Code: Select all

0+583591 Datensätze ein
0+583591 Datensätze ein
7381975040 bytes (7,4 GB, 6,9 GiB) copied, 940,741 s, 7,8 MB/s

I have not forgotten to use the sync-command.

I put the sd-card into the raspi board, connected an usb-keyboard and a usb-mouse. I connected a projector with hdmi, because I don't have a hdmi-monitor. The projector was running, reported "No signal".
Now I powered the Raspi on, the red led started to glow, the green led went on now and then, but still no signal arrived at the projector. After some time, the green led blinked steadily once a second.
Nothing else happended.
Where is my mistake?
It's a brand new raspi 3 B+

[TeX Dog]

does projector have audio speaker? if not the config file will need o be modified. Mine does not and the RiP3 I have draws so much extra current the power supply can`t keep up. move a normal hdtv and power issues go away. I have tried Rpi2B with a projector with a speaker and it worked fine.
does sound ike a bad hdmi connection or cable. lights, there are llight flash codes on line. is the sdcard in correcty? i think one flash is no sdcard found

[amj]

If the green LED is blinking, it might be that your system is actually running but that nothing is being output to your screen.

I suggest you have a good look at the config.txt file in partition 1 of the microSD card (the boot partition) and see if any of the video settings at the start of that file need to be changed to accommodate your projector.

Although the RPi provides HDMI output, it will run perfectly well with both DVI and VGA monitors provided that you have an appropriate HDMI to DVI or HDMI to VGA adapter. Such adapters retail for less than 20 euro.

[Sage]

If the green LED is blinking, it might be that your system is actually running

My experiences so far suggest both above guys are correct. Your system is working OK but has failed to complete the boot-up, possibly due to lack of power - I've seen this happen. Double check, though, with a Raspian SD, or even better, load a super-lightweight like OpenELEC. Otherwise, there is always the issue of video drivers. Use the TV input as suggested or beg, borrow or buy an old monitor, although not all vga adapters work and DVI adapters can be particularly tricky.

Another suggestion: Dig out an old AT or ATX PSU*, snip a pair of 5V cables and push them onto GPIO pins 2or4 +5V and pin 6 GRND. For ATX you will need to short green-to-black on the 20/24pin to start, AT has a switch on the box.

*Brits : let me know how many you want to collect.

[Laie]

It was a defective HDMI-cable.
Sorry for any inconvenience,
tomorrow I'll give it another try.

(Can I say that: "defective HDMI-cable"?)

[TeX Dog]

NO,,, lol RPi3 does seem to find the weaker ones, must be a current thing. slightly too much amps and thangs go weird. Some HDTV have same issues some are not good enough and cause random issues.
Best to match to the highest common pic size you use for better playback experience the scaling part of the RPi3 video playback hardware is less able than the HW decoder which is not normally expected. Let the HDTV or projector scale back down the video to its native size.
otherwise a ripple appears, it looks horrible projected HUGE on a wall

[TeX Dog]

If the green LED is blinking, it might be that your system is actually running

My experiences so far suggest both above guys are correct. Your system is working OK but has failed to complete the boot-up, possibly due to lack of power - I've seen this happen. Double check, though, with a Raspian SD, or even better, load a super-lightweight like OpenELEC. Otherwise, there is always the issue of video drivers. Use the TV input as suggested or beg, borrow or buy an old monitor, although not all vga adapters work and DVI adapters can be particularly tricky.

Another suggestion: Dig out an old AT or ATX PSU*, snip a pair of 5V cables and push them onto GPIO pins 2or4 +5V and pin 6 GRND. For ATX you will need to short green-to-black on the 20/24pin to start, AT has a switch on the box.

*Brits : let me know how many you want to collect.

Could you make a video or good directions.. ( with pics of the correct settings for 220vac. ) I have an idea to 12v & 5v cabin the only nearby power is 230vac for a water well pump. Not our normal 120v leg. It would save me a few hundred USD.

[Sage]

nearby power is 230vac

Pure guess - you are in continental USA? Now how many times have I tried to persuade EVERY correspondent to edit their profile to show at least their continent/preferably nation - it helps to help!

All domestic properties in USA (probably Canada & Mexico) are served by a 220/230/250Vac supply which runs their appliances (washer, dryer, fridge, cooker) as is. The line is split to (at least two) 110Vac to supply domestic sockets and lighting. Most of RoW on 110Vac do something similar.

Normally, PSUs supplied in the Americas are supplied with 110Vac set, but many will have the little black slotted switch on the rear to change to 220/230Vac - FLIP THIS. If it isn't fitted (there will be a small oblong cut-out blanked off), the option usually exists inside the box because all PSUs are created equal in which case a couple of extra wires may be needed. [Very, very early units may have been made in the US and omit the extra components to save cost, but I haven't had the opportunity to check this.]
BUT IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE OPENING THE BOX WHICH IS ALWAYS LABELLED 'DANGER' OR 'HAZARD' - GET SOMEONE ELSE TO DO THE CONVERSION BECAUSE dc CAN KILL - IT ONLY GOES ONE WAY(!) SO LOCKS UP YOUR MUSCLES. YOUR HEART IS A MUSCLE, TOO. But don't go overboard - I've made a hobby of fixing dead PSUs and the guys who make them test them by the thousand every day before the lids go on.

After that, you need to find one red and one black lead going to a 4-socket Molex (just a name) floppy/hard disc/CD-DVD connector. There are usually at least two of these even on old AT boxes. Snip one each cable at the connector end. No need for soldering anything, just force the red one onto the GPIO pin 2 (look it up if you don't know the numbering system which is "opposed" ie 2 is opposite 1 and 4, 6,8, etc are next to each other on the same side)), force the black one onto pin 6. That provides your power. If it's an AT PSU just plug in and switch on once you have the correct ac line voltage set. For an ATX supply, use a short length of insulated copper wire, ends trimmed, to push in and short the green ( orange, blue, black GREEN etc, etc down one side) and black sockets on your 20(/24) motherboard power lead, then just plug ac cord into wall socket.

There is no more to say. If you cannot follow those steps, there's probably plenty of folks who'll help; once shown, never forgotten. Above is written for complete neophytes so please don't be offended if you, dear reader, are a designer/repairman of electronic/electric equipment.
Either way, be sure to report back success for the benefit of anyone else unsure.

Anecdotal: Why 230Vac? Why 110Vac? Leaving aside the great debate about ac vs. dc., the US was originally persuaded that 110Vac was 'safer' than 250Vac. It turned out to be nonsense. On the one hand, very few fit healthy folk are killed by 250Vac - they die when they are thrown backwards and crack their scull on the Out house sink! Neither is 110Vac any 'safer' from consequential disaster. Maybe some value <90Vac might be less 'shocking', at least for some individuals. The downside of using 110Vac is the need for thicker and much more expensive copper wiring, apart from the greater problem of iR losses, lower reliability against minor defects normally encountered during the lifetime of products, etc. In practice, the selection of 220/230/240Vac has proved a wise choice leading to lower costs and higher reliability. The bizarre effect in the USA, in particular, is, as indicated above, virtually all buildings possess a 250Vac supply; virtually all could change over to 250Vac outlets and lighting at modest cost and significant savings in the longer term. Could there be an element of arrogance not to do that?!