raspberry pi!

[VJ]

And still no pics....

Would you believe it... I left my camera in the apartment...

But honestly, there is no much to make a photo of in this case.

[Umfriend]

And still no pics....

[VJ]

Just to report back: the touchscreen works as well as you can expect such a cheap thing to work. The drivers comprise a customized kernel, so that limits some things (e.g. you cannot run it inside a berryboot, as that one also runs a customized kernel); you also cannot update the kernel. The drivers do install on an existing Raspbian, so no need to get their customized distribution.

The screen has about 8 fps, so not usable for making a portable media player or game station and you cannot switch off the backlight. I knew about the low fps, but only wanted it as a small status display so I did not care about it. It does not work with fbtft, although people are working on getting it to work (some have success by soldering things to the controller chips). You also cannot have a dual screen hdmi/small screen and you need a reboot to switch from one to the other.

To be honest, in retrospect, maybe I should have gone for the slightly more expensive hdmi model (13 euro more expensive) as that would have avoided the need for a driver, the backlight issue and the need for a reboot to switch. But at the price it was, my Raspberry pi is better protected by the case (which is ok - the screen is the top panel though) and it suffices for my uses for now. I'm not even sure what I'll use it for, so I did not want to spend too much; for at least one use I think off, the screen would suffice.

[VJ]

I ordered the small touch screen... A huge promotion meant that it was just under 13 euros for the 3.5" touchscreen (320x480) that plugs into the GPIO and a plexi case that holds both. The touchscreen seems to have a well supported chipset, so for sure it should work on Raspbian (not sure if it will work easily on Berryboot, but I have a workaround for that). Quite a long delivery though, so I won't have it soon.

[VJ]

Still haven't tried it as I was messing around with other ideas, perhaps using a graphical OS for all purposes.

The idea of using a Raspbian for multibooting works: Berryboot is configured with a default Raspbian, and in that one there are scripts (e.g. on the desktop) that modify the runonce file (setting the next boot image) and reboot. This reboot even skips the Berryboot menu, so it boots up really fast. This makes it interesting to get a cheap touchscreen: even if it does not work in Berryboot, it is enough if it works in Raspbian. And this is a bit the reason why I stopped looking at converting the img file to SquashFS: if there is a touchscreen, perhaps it would be more interesting to use it for the different functionalities I would put on it. So a headless OS seems less interesting (and most of the img files I have were headless versions).

[VJ]

I will try... but it will have to wait till next week...

[UtwigMU]

What if you dd image to /dev/sdg (sd card or usb), change, then dd to actual hdd?

I know I may be kicking in the dark here but I'm trying to provide ideas and input.

[VJ]

The read-only part is not an issue... the procedure is necessary to make a SquashFS partition of it (needed by Berryboot) and save it back as an image, but if I cannot mount it I cannot make the SquashFS partition.

[UtwigMU]

Strange, I got a notification of a reply but it does not show up...

To answer it: the img file is a standard raspbian image which I can write to a SD card and it works fine. The img contains a FAT partition and a ext4 partition.

One thing might be: I'm trying to mount the image in a Debian on Virtualbox... but as it is a file and not a real device, I thought that should not matter.

Note that if you mount with -o loop it treats it like a read only file (used for mounting isos, useful if you want to dd iso to usb hdd).

[VJ]

Strange, I got a notification of a reply but it does not show up...

To answer it: the img file is a standard raspbian image which I can write to a SD card and it works fine. The img contains a FAT partition and a ext4 partition.

One thing might be: I'm trying to mount the image in a Debian on Virtualbox... but as it is a file and not a real device, I thought that should not matter.

[VJ]

Still not there... I tried these instructions:

https://www.berryterminal.com/doku.php/berryboot/adding_custom_distributions

But get the message

read error, sector 0
read error, sector 1
read error, sector 29

SELinux is disabled... file allows me to list the partitions in the img file, but I have not managed to mount them...

A bit of an issue, as the ssh-access on a Stretch Lite is disabled by default, and lacking a keyboard it means I cannot edit the image file to enable ssh on a stretch lite on berryboot...

Now a bit of holiday, but after that I'll get back to it. I may just use fill installations of Stretch, especially if I would have the touch screen that would make sense. :-)

[VJ]

Ok, from what I read, the idea to multiboot that way should work. And it may be a lot easier by getting a small lcd touchscreen rather than messing with the e-ink and buttons: a link on the desktop could run the script and reboot. So, before buying a small lcd, I'll try it... currently building some Berryboot images and then we'll see if it works. If that works out ok, a simple 3.5" lcd touchscreen with case (which can be found for ridiculously low prices) would be the next purchase.

It does seem that running TVHeadend and Kodi at the same is too much for the Raspberry Pi 3B+: it manages, but you can see that it struggles at times (to output full HD via hdmi). More tests needed....

[VJ]

Any suggestions on multibooting?

I know about Berryboot and Noobs... I would like to have a multiboot without having to connect a keyboard or so. For this purpose I though of either some buttons connected to the GPIO (e.g. one button for each os) or even a small touchscreen. The first question pops up quite frequent but I have not seen solutions for it; the second one seems possible with the official rpi touchscreen, but possibilities of using other ones are vague. Ideally I'd want a small screen (2.8-3.5") to keep the whole thing very portable, the official 7" display is a bit too big for that (but seems the only safe option so far)...

I was thinking of a display like this: https://www.waveshare.com/product/mi...aper-hat-b.htm
Then configure BerryBoot to have a default OS (simple Raspbian Lite or so), whose only task is to show an fixed image on the display and associate button presses with modifications of the BerryBoot-file /mnt/data/runonce (a bit as is done here: https://yoursunny.com/t/2017/berryboot-reboot-into/ ) . I'm guessing that all should not be too difficult. It would be quite static if it is a fixed image that just lists e.g. 4 boot options, but may be enough for my purpose... And one of the options could be something that uses the display in a more advanced way.

[VJ]

Sorry, I don't have Netflix so I cannot test it...

The radio receiver I bought is this one: NooElec Smart. I tested it for DVB-T reception and it is immediately recognized in Rasbian (Stretch, latest kernel) and just works out of the box in TVHeadEnd on the Rasbian. So while I did not buy it as a DVB-T tuner primarily, at least it appears to work. NooElec has smaller models, but I read they get very hot and they have more fragile antenna connectors. The one I got gets warm (but you can touch it without problem), should use less power than the smaller models, should get a better signal and has a more solid SMA connector. I'll play around with the receiver in Windows as well, just to see how good it is supported.

[Umfriend]

I never got Netflix to run, let alone properly, on my 2B.