Raspberry Pi: yeah we're pretty much all on desktops again

Puddin · # ? Oct 4, 2013 06:53

I bought my second Pi for an XBMC box in the living room after suffering through a ton of different crappy transcoding programs all failing in someway or another.

This one seems to work a little diferently with the tv in the living room rather than the one in the bedroom.

Even though I've turned off the option in my tv's CEC settings to power on/off all connected devices when the TV is turned on/off, it still turns on/off the Pi every time.

I can't find any settings in XBMC itself (latest stable Openelec), but is there and parameters in the settings files that I can fiddle with at all?

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Oben · # ? Oct 4, 2013 13:54

You can turn it off through the menu in: Settings\System\Input Devices\Peripherals

DoctorOozy · # ? Oct 4, 2013 21:12

I finally got the OnionPi working using the guide at http://learn.adafruit.com/onion-pi/overview. It works very well as a wifi hotspot and is not too slow with TOR running on it (I did stick a couple of heat sinks on it and overclocked by 2V).

I went through a few Wireless adapters trying to find one that would work though and ended up buying one from Adafruit.

DoctorOozy · # ? Oct 4, 2013 21:14

Puddin posted:

I bought my second Pi for an XBMC box in the living room after suffering through a ton of different crappy transcoding programs all failing in someway or another.

This one seems to work a little diferently with the tv in the living room rather than the one in the bedroom.

Even though I've turned off the option in my tv's CEC settings to power on/off all connected devices when the TV is turned on/off, it still turns on/off the Pi every time.

I can't find any settings in XBMC itself (latest stable Openelec), but is there and parameters in the settings files that I can fiddle with at all?

Do you get audio clicks? I tried doing this and at the start and end every track I got a loud click that rendered the whole project useless as it nearly blew out my speakers.

eightysixed · # ? Oct 4, 2013 21:35

Rubiks Pubes posted:

Well my project is pretty much stuck. I'm thinking about finding something else to do with mine but I'm not sure what.

Did you open a thread in the programming forum? If so, please link it. Not because I have the knowledge to actually probably help, but because I'm curious, and the idea sounded neat. If you didn't, you should.

Sackmo · Sackmo Oct 13, 2004

DoctorOozy posted:

I finally got the OnionPi working using the guide at http://learn.adafruit.com/onion-pi/overview

That's great to hear. My wireless AP just kicked the bucket so I ordered an Onion Pi pack from Adafruit to replace it, though I probably won't bother with TOR.

Been waiting forever for an excuse to finally get a Pi. :3:

SYSV Fanfic · # ? Oct 4, 2013 21:57

Sackmo posted:

Been waiting forever for an excuse to finally get a Pi.

The best excuse is the model B is only $35. I think the power I've saved keeping my old shell/file server off and relying on the Pi has paid for the Pi and the case.

hazzlebarth · # ? Oct 4, 2013 22:12

I've setup my PI to serve as a starting point for remote controlling lights, my front- and garage door etc with a web browser. Helps a lot to be able to simply open the door with the mobile phone. (http://susi-moog.de/temp/index.php shows how this looks)

Projects that are still in the planning phase:

- A weather station to record temperatures and plot a nice graph
- Collecting data from my photo-voltaic system so I have reliable statistics

For the latter project I am looking for a power meter that can be accessed via USB or ethernet, do any of you have a suggestion for that? (Ideally one for 230V AC)

eddiewalker · # ? Oct 5, 2013 01:07

Sorry I mashed the "garage" button for ten minutes.

DoctorOozy · # ? Oct 5, 2013 09:25

eddiewalker posted:

Sorry I mashed the "garage" button for ten minutes.

At least it was not the Balcony "on/off" button.

Puddin · # ? Oct 5, 2013 10:12

Oben posted:

You can turn it off through the menu in: Settings\System\Input Devices\Peripherals

For some reason I didn't click into the CEC, I didn't know that had options to select. Cheers, fixed it right up.

Puddin · # ? Oct 5, 2013 10:14

DoctorOozy posted:

Do you get audio clicks? I tried doing this and at the start and end every track I got a loud click that rendered the whole project useless as it nearly blew out my speakers.

Not sure what your referencing, but I don't get any clicks?

TVarmy · # ? Oct 6, 2013 00:26

Maybe he's talking about the analog sound, which makes a horrible pop on stopping and starting?

Paul MaudDib · # ? Oct 6, 2013 01:17

Powered Descent posted:

While we're on the topic of "kinda like a Pi", somehow I managed not to hear about the BeagleBone Black until yesterday. It's ~~five~~ ten bucks more than a Pi and its graphics aren't as nice, but it has a much faster cpu, 2 gigs of onboard storage, and way more I/O connections. I haven't had a chance to play with one yet but it sounds pretty cool.

A comparison: http://makezine.com/magazine/how-to-choose-the-right-platform-raspberry-pi-or-beaglebone-black/

e: Oops, wrong price

I'm really looking forward to the Parallella. That is a fair bit of computing power for an embedded device.

The Pi is just a bit underpowered for even home server usage. It's OK for any one given task but if you try to do more than one thing it's just not beefy enough. And the architecture with USB as a system bus and everything bottlenecked through the CPU is a bad design, full-speed transfers from Samba to USB or the SD card basically eats most of the CPU. Giving the SD card and the network chip dedicated USB channels would probably help. It would also really help to have some kind of SSL acceleration because that slows things down pretty bad too.

Maybe it's just the 256mb version, but I feel like I would have been better served going to a slightly more expensive multi-core stick with more RAM. The Pi definitely drove those cheaper though.

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Oct 6, 2013

Puddin · # ? Oct 6, 2013 01:29

TVarmy posted:

Maybe he's talking about the analog sound, which makes a horrible pop on stopping and starting?

I haven't experienced that on playing any media types. :shrug:

Is that an issue that pops up on some builds?

Casull · Casull Aug 13, 2005

I turned my Pi into a wireless AP so that...okay, long story short, it spoofs Nintendo stuff for my 3DS.

The long story lies on the Nintendo 3DS' StreetPass functionality:

Wikipedia posted:

StreetPass is a Nintendo 3DS functionality which allows the passive communication between Nintendo 3DS systems held by users in close proximity, an example being the sharing of Mii avatars in the StreetPass Mii Plaza application, and other game data.

StreetPass allows users to exchange software content regardless of what software is currently in the console. Currently shared content is stored in one of twelve "data slots" in the console. Using this data slot, Nintendo 3DS users can readily share and exchange content for multiple games at the same time, whenever they are connected.[3] Using the console's background connectivity, a Nintendo 3DS in Sleep Mode can automatically discover other Nintendo 3DS systems within range, establish a connection, and exchange content for mutually played games, all transparently and without requiring any user input. For example, in Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition, if the user passes by someone with the same software, they will initiate a battle to collect trophies from each other.[4]

The problem is that barely anyone has a 3DS in America compared to Japan. Nintendo then introduced StreetPass relay:

Wikipedia posted:

StreetPass relay points are located at Nintendo Zones all across the country. When a Nintendo 3DS user gets near a StreetPass relay point, it automatically forwards his or her StreetPass data to Nintendo's servers which stores it temporarily to pass it on to the next Nintendo 3DS user to pass by the same relay point. The Nintendo servers keep track of each relay point by the MAC address of the node. StreetPass relay points support StreetPass data for various games each time a Nintendo 3DS user passes by. This means you can get StreetPass data for several games at once.

By spoofing the MAC address (and SSID), it's possible to set up a StreetPass relay at home and effectively StreetPass with another guy halfway across the world if they're spoofing the same MAC address and SSID.

Using Pidora Remix, hostapd, and a script I wrote, my Pi rotates MAC addresses and effectively allows me to StreetPass multiple people without having to lift a finger (other than to trigger the script and specify which MAC addresses I want to spoof.)

Casull fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Oct 7, 2013

Ernie. · Ernie. Aug 31, 2012

Casull posted:

Using Pidora Remix, hostapd, and a script I wrote, my Pi rotates MAC addresses and effectively allows me to StreetPass multiple people without having to lift a finger

Say someone who is not technically challenged but code illiterate wants to get something like this done because "why the hell not", would you share your script or tell them how to get it done?

Rooted Vegetable · # ? Oct 7, 2013 17:26

Does anyone have any recommendations for a usb stick to use with the Pi? I'm thinking I'll put Rasplex on there for speed reasons... But... I'm trying to find a drive that is quick (as quick as the pi can use at least) and also doesn't cost more than the pi... Like $8-10 area...

TVarmy · # ? Oct 7, 2013 19:52

Heners_UK posted:

Does anyone have any recommendations for a usb stick to use with the Pi? I'm thinking I'll put Rasplex on there for speed reasons... But... I'm trying to find a drive that is quick (as quick as the pi can use at least) and also doesn't cost more than the pi... Like $8-10 area...

Why not a class 10 SD card? They're fast and not that pricey. Here's one for $12 at 16gb.

I could be wrong, but I remember hearing that usb transfers occupy the CPU quite a bit.

If I'm wrong, please correct me. But switching from a class 6 to a class 10 helped Open Elec run smoother.

peepsalot · # ? Oct 7, 2013 20:06

TVarmy posted:

Why not a class 10 SD card? They're fast and not that pricey. Here's one for $12 at 16gb.

I could be wrong, but I remember hearing that usb transfers occupy the CPU quite a bit.

Actually I don't know the details, but I thought I remembered people bitching about the opposite, that the sdcard on the pi is on the same bus as some other poo poo and basically is slow as balls compared to anything else.

e: A link. http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5057

I haven't read through the whole thread yet to see if anything was eventually figured out, if its possible to solve in sofwtare or its a hardware limitation, but the gist is that a sd card reader over USB is faster than the builtin sdcard port(at least in April 2012 that was the case).

peepsalot fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Oct 7, 2013

Rooted Vegetable · # ? Oct 7, 2013 20:16

From what I can tell, that's still true now. Thing is I'm trying to find a reasonable option and it turns out that both SD cards and usb flash drives vary wildly in terms of speed to price ratios... So I'm just trying to find something snappy for the pi to use... Remove the bottleneck but not overspend.

Skarsnik · # ? Oct 8, 2013 07:17

TVarmy posted:

Maybe he's talking about the analog sound, which makes a horrible pop on stopping and starting?

This was fixed months ago by an updated firmware build (which is a 5 minute job to update)

LRADIKAL · # ? Oct 8, 2013 10:22

Heners_UK posted:

From what I can tell, that's still true now. Thing is I'm trying to find a reasonable option and it turns out that both SD cards and usb flash drives vary wildly in terms of speed to price ratios... So I'm just trying to find something snappy for the pi to use... Remove the bottleneck but not overspend.

Wayyyyyy back in the thread I describe how to boot the Pi off of an NFS share, which if served off a snappy computer is the fastest option I've seen.

SYSV Fanfic · # ? Oct 8, 2013 18:22

Jago posted:

Wayyyyyy back in the thread I describe how to boot the Pi off of an NFS share, which if served off a snappy computer is the fastest option I've seen.

But has the disadvantage of requiring at the very least a Linux virtual machine on the network.

Rooted Vegetable · # ? Oct 8, 2013 18:35

Jago posted:

Wayyyyyy back in the thread I describe how to boot the Pi off of an NFS share, which if served off a snappy computer is the fastest option I've seen.

Must admit that's smart, but as a slightly easier option, I'm looking at the usb flash drive. This gets round the SD Card sharing the same bus as the networking (again, quoting from memory there).

Thing is, as hard as I look, I've not got any actual recommendations on proportionately priced and tested usb flash drives for this purpose. It looks like I'll pick a reasonable one that can get close to the max speed of usb 2 and has good random read speed, then report back.

evol262 · # ? Oct 8, 2013 19:22

keyvin posted:

But has the disadvantage of requiring at the very least a Linux virtual machine on the network.

The Pi runs Linux anyway, so it's not like this is a stretch, but you can easily run an NFS server on Windows.

Pablo Bluth · # ? Oct 8, 2013 23:24

So they're up to 1.75 million units total, with the millionth unit rolling off the UK line.

G-Prime · # ? Oct 8, 2013 23:33

evol262 posted:

The Pi runs Linux anyway, so it's not like this is a stretch, but you can easily run an NFS server on Windows.

Can you provide some info on that? I've been looking for a good way to use NFS instead of SMB on my Windows machine since I got my Pi 9 months ago. The only options I've found are a paid server, and a free one that only allows a single share, which doesn't serve my purposes either.

LRADIKAL · # ? Oct 9, 2013 07:14

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3468084&userid=22889#post412641988

My method was to run a NFS share off of a virtual FreeNAS server using virtualbox. I'm pretty sure there are standalone windows NFS servers.

I could certainly have gone all out and had my media saved onto an NFS volume (which supposedly runs faster than samba) but I would lose ease of use for grabbing torrents and manipulating media on my PC.

So if you are really keen to share via NFS on a windows machine, run freeNAS (or whatever) and have the virtual machine get dedicated access to the storage drive.. Then you can share the NFS drive on your network. On the local machine your speeds should be near hardware speed. Over the network you should get the advantages of NFS.

Computer viking · # ? Oct 9, 2013 16:29

Actually, windows services for unix (or whatever they're called today) has a perfectly reasonable NFS client. However, MS have, in their infinite wisdom, decided to only make it available on Ultimate and Enterprise .

Not helpful for booting a Pi - but if you want to have all your data on NFS, it should work fine (given the right windows version).

evol262 · # ? Oct 9, 2013 16:37

G-Prime posted:

Can you provide some info on that? I've been looking for a good way to use NFS instead of SMB on my Windows machine since I got my Pi 9 months ago. The only options I've found are a paid server, and a free one that only allows a single share, which doesn't serve my purposes either.

Interix/SFU/SUA or whatever the gently caress Microsoft calls it now has an NFS server baked in. They deprecated it with Win8 and removed it completely in 8.1, I guess, but if you're still using 7 or 2k8R2, see here to install, and configure as normal.

eddiewalker · # ? Oct 9, 2013 18:01

haneWIN NFS server for windows works for my non-pi needs, and for some reason, the trial period has never expired.

JawnV6 · # ? Oct 10, 2013 17:29

I have an rpi that I'm trying to use as a lightweight way to check an I2C chip and store the results.

I'm able to configure the device with single-byte writes. For this particular chip, I need to read 2 bytes starting from 0x0. i2cget on the cmdline and smbus in python both offer single-byte reads and word reads. The word reads are failing, I suspect because the chip doesn't support that but didn't have a LA handy to check.

Programming language is irrelevant, I can get this built with anything. Any recommendations for an API that will let me do 2-byte I2C reads?

robostac · robostac Sep 23, 2009

Read word data is probably doing what you want - the kernel documentation says that is 16 bit (https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/i2c/smbus-protocol).

The only alternative I'm aware of is to use the ioctl interface (https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/i2c/dev-interface) that gives you more control over the i2c bus.

Murodese · # ? Oct 11, 2013 13:39

Casull posted:

I turned my Pi into a wireless AP so that...okay, long story short, it spoofs Nintendo stuff for my 3DS.

That is cool as hell dude, I was wondering when somebody would do something like that. Time to turn my raspbmc unit into a Streetpass proxy :3:

Sackmo · Sackmo Oct 13, 2004

I was super excited to get my Onion Pi Pack from Adafruit a few days ago, but so far I've been running into a lot of problems. After putting everything together and plugging it in the pi failed to boot, and then would only boot if I left it out of the case. I couldn't even get it to boot if I left the top cover off and simply set it inside the bottom tray, which was odd because nothing seemed to fit improperly. Then I noticed on Adafruit's site that the case is incompatible with the micro SD card adapter, which is part of the same pack. :crossarms:

Anyway, even without the case I'm having issues with dropped packets. SSH acts extremely slow, and sometimes doesn't even connect. After a fresh reboot and an attempt to download a speed test file ifconfig gives me this:

code:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ifconfig eth0
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr b8:27:eb:87:7b:80
          inet addr:192.168.0.6  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:8543 errors:6886 dropped:3444 overruns:0 frame:3444
          TX packets:10034 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:8617647 (8.2 MiB)  TX bytes:1228336 (1.1 MiB)

Here's what a couple of iperf tests give me:

code:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ iperf -c 192.168.0.21
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.0.21, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 21.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  3] local 192.168.0.6 port 56348 connected with 192.168.0.21 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec   111 MBytes  92.7 Mbits/sec

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ iperf -s
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  4] local 192.168.0.6 port 5001 connected with 192.168.0.21 port 59777
[  5] local 192.168.0.6 port 5001 connected with 192.168.0.21 port 59778
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  5]  0.0-162.7 sec   256 KBytes  12.9 Kbits/sec

Notice the first connection while running in server mode didn't even finish.

I've tried using different cables, different ports, and even tried the wireless module that they sent. Everything drops packets like mad, and the connection is extremely unstable. I ran read/write tests on the SD card and it seems to be working fine. Top doesn't show any processor hogging. Am I missing something obvious, or did I get a bum pi?

TVarmy · # ? Oct 11, 2013 22:36

Sackmo posted:

I was super excited to get my Onion Pi Pack from Adafruit a few days ago, but so far I've been running into a lot of problems. After putting everything together and plugging it in the pi failed to boot, and then would only boot if I left it out of the case. I couldn't even get it to boot if I left the top cover off and simply set it inside the bottom tray, which was odd because nothing seemed to fit improperly. Then I noticed on Adafruit's site that the case is incompatible with the micro SD card adapter, which is part of the same pack.

Anyway, even without the case I'm having issues with dropped packets. SSH acts extremely slow, and sometimes doesn't even connect. After a fresh reboot and an attempt to download a speed test file ifconfig gives me this:
code:
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ifconfig eth0
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr b8:27:eb:87:7b:80
          inet addr:192.168.0.6  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:8543 errors:6886 dropped:3444 overruns:0 frame:3444
          TX packets:10034 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:8617647 (8.2 MiB)  TX bytes:1228336 (1.1 MiB)
Here's what a couple of iperf tests give me:
code:
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ iperf -c 192.168.0.21
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.0.21, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 21.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  3] local 192.168.0.6 port 56348 connected with 192.168.0.21 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec   111 MBytes  92.7 Mbits/sec

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ iperf -s
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  4] local 192.168.0.6 port 5001 connected with 192.168.0.21 port 59777
[  5] local 192.168.0.6 port 5001 connected with 192.168.0.21 port 59778
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  5]  0.0-162.7 sec   256 KBytes  12.9 Kbits/sec
Notice the first connection while running in server mode didn't even finish.

I've tried using different cables, different ports, and even tried the wireless module that they sent. Everything drops packets like mad, and the connection is extremely unstable. I ran read/write tests on the SD card and it seems to be working fine. Top doesn't show any processor hogging. Am I missing something obvious, or did I get a bum pi?

You could be having power supply issues. If it's providing not enough amps or not 5v within +/-.1, that can throw a pi off. Ether check with a multimeter or try a tablet charger (greater than one amp).

You should contact Adafruit about that. It's possible they plain don't know they still have kits with incompatible parts for sale, and I think you should ask for at least an exchange.

DoctorOozy · # ? Oct 11, 2013 23:12

Skarsnik posted:

This was fixed months ago by an updated firmware build (which is a 5 minute job to update)

Excellent! I shall get back on with my media centre project then.

Sackmo · Sackmo Oct 13, 2004

TVarmy posted:

You could be having power supply issues. If it's providing not enough amps or not 5v within +/-.1, that can throw a pi off. Ether check with a multimeter or try a tablet charger (greater than one amp).

You should contact Adafruit about that. It's possible they plain don't know they still have kits with incompatible parts for sale, and I think you should ask for at least an exchange.

I tried using the recharger for my Nexus 7 (5.2 volts, 1.35 amps) and it's giving me the exact same issues. There aren't as many dropped packets, but it still won't download at more than 30Kb/s.

I figured I was going to have to contact Adafruit anyway, but I hate to be "that guy" who sends stuff back that's actually fine so I thought I would check here first in case I was being a dummy. At least all of this is teaching me a lot about network diagnosis.

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mod sassinator · # ? Oct 12, 2013 10:52

JawnV6 posted:

I have an rpi that I'm trying to use as a lightweight way to check an I2C chip and store the results.

I'm able to configure the device with single-byte writes. For this particular chip, I need to read 2 bytes starting from 0x0. i2cget on the cmdline and smbus in python both offer single-byte reads and word reads. The word reads are failing, I suspect because the chip doesn't support that but didn't have a LA handy to check.

Programming language is irrelevant, I can get this built with anything. Any recommendations for an API that will let me do 2-byte I2C reads?

I would think a word read would work, but what about a block read for 2 bytes? Check out the Adafruit I2C library to see how they use smbus in python: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code/blob/master/Adafruit_I2C/Adafruit_I2C.py