Category: raspi

Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit

Back up your user files (only). Don't bother configuring the installer beyond choosing "Other Raspbian" and "64-bit base", it ignores your settings, you'll have to configure the device after booting stock. But it writes the micro-SD card correctly; I didn't have to reformat it myself like last time. So I run thru my 400 setup routine again, and with minor changes it's still current.

Everything seems to work. I can run my Scheme scripts in Gauche like it was just a minute ago. Since it's 64-bit now, I should be able to install Chez Scheme from Debian! But ambitious plans later. Python is 3.9.2, which meh, fine; I've mostly updated my desktop to 3.10, but old ports require 3.9 still.

I had a weird crash with Twitch, but I've had that before; on reboot I was able to watch Twitch with no problems, but I'll keep an eye on that.

Uh, when adding things to the Main Menu, make sure they're marked executable (chmod 755 whatever).

And reminder, MagPi magazine is good content, you just have to persistently demand "free PDF", nobody wants dead trees! It does tend towards the very noob, classic WIRED magazine color/font assault on your senses, and they think IDEs are a good idea on a tiny computer. Don't do that. Just use Vim in a terminal.

Very importantly, keep your files as much as possible on a USB drive, not the internal SD card, you don't want to thrash the OS card any more than you have to.

Now the next step will be to reuse my old micro-SD card for an alternate OS, so I'm not running Linux. But if you do run Linux, Raspbian's acceptable since it only has one hardware profile to support.

Raspberry Pi 400 Setup

I got my RasPi400 after weeks of delay. WEEKS! What is this, 1980? (I wish)

Keyboard is almost precisely the size & layout of the Apple Magic Keyboard, which is fine with me. The key travel's bad, like the lawsuit butterfly keyboard. I'm moderately unpleased with the keyboard touch, but it's definitely usable. I switch over here to my Magic Keyboard, and it's night and day in quality. Mouse is nice enough; it's not a hi-DPI gaming mouse, but it's a good workstation mouse. Aesthetics are fine, I'd prefer black to white, but the raspberry red highlights are pleasing.

It is so nice to have a really usable little computer in a keyboard again. Literally the best thing since the Atari 800 (and that cost $899 in 1980, $2,869.53 in 2021's inflated currency; this is 28x cheaper!).

I've grown accustomed to Raspberry Pi OS (née raspbian). It's still a lame linux, but they've mostly got pulseaudio working(!) after 20 years of it being not functional, wifi mostly stays up, the desktop environment isn't awful. It's no Mac OS X Tiger, but nothing is anymore. There's less complaining from me using it, than hours of playing sysadmin would cause.

Not RasPi's problem, but I got a new, overly large portable LCD for use with this, FANGOR 15.6"; it's basically impossible to find any LCD >7" but <15" which has a decent rez (1920x1080) and color reproduction; the random-Chinese-fake-company plastic 10" on my RasPi4 is just awful, the worst screen I've ever used. RasPi4 is now on my bookshelf, waiting to be moved into a closet where it will live forever as a headless server that I don't have to hear the fan whine.

Checklist

  • "Recommended software"
    • Keep: Geany, Mathematica, WolframAlpha, VNC Viewer
    • Currently errors when I try to remove LibreOffice, which is bullshit!
    • I don't use Claws Mail, I use webmail on the pi. I should install mutt or alpine. But if you like graphical mail, leave it.
    • Minecraft Pi is ridiculous, tiny world, creative mode only, tiny window you can't resize. Don't bother.
    • Remove everything else.
  • Remove the unremovable crap and like half an SD card of dependencies! (update 2022-02-03: Seems like these are no longer pre-installed, so that's better.) 
    % sudo apt-get purge "libreoffice*"
% sudo apt-get purge "scratch*"
% sudo apt-get clean
% sudo apt-get autoremove
  • Add/Remove Software: zsh, gauche, vim, media apps. (update 2022-02-03: zsh is now in /bin/zsh where it should be.) 
    % sudo apt-get install zsh gauche vim mpv yt-dlp 
% sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-data xscreensaver-data-extra
% chsh pi -s /bin/zsh
  • Fix mouse scroll direction! 
    % sudo vi /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "libinput pointer catchall"
    MatchIsPointer "on"
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
    Driver "libinput"
    # add this:
    Option "NaturalScrolling" "true"
EndSection
  • Fix capslock to be ctrl: 
    % sudo vi /etc/default/keyboard
XKBOPTIONS="ctrl:swapcaps"

    Or ctrl:nocaps if you don't want any capslock, but I find it somewhat useful.

  • Create local user, not pi:

    % sudo adduser mdh
% sudo usermod -aG sudo mdh
  • Disable auto-login: Raspi, Preferences, Raspi Configuration.

  • login as mdh

    % chsh mdh -s /bin/zsh
% mkdir bin
% mkdir tmp
  • Fix vim: How to Configure Vim

  • vi .profile:

    export EDITOR=vim
export TMP="$HOME/tmp"
export LESS="-C -i -M -g -e -y4"
export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
  • vi .zshrc: 
    umask 022

unsetopt NOMATCH
setopt APPEND_HISTORY
setopt COMBINING_CHARS
setopt EXTENDED_HISTORY
setopt HIST_IGNORE_DUPS
setopt HIST_REDUCE_BLANKS
setopt INC_APPEND_HISTORY
setopt INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS
setopt NO_BANG_HIST
setopt PROMPT_SUBST

bindkey -e

export HISTFILE=~/.zhistory
export HISTSIZE=10000
export SAVEHIST=$HISTSIZE

autoload -U zmv
autoload -U colors && colors
export PS1="%{$fg[red]%}%n@%m:%~%#%{$reset_color%} "

zmodload zsh/mathfunc
zmodload zsh/regex

function mcd() {
    mkdir -p "$1"
    cd "$1"
}

function cdcd() {
    while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
        cd "$1"
        shift
    done
}

function hd() {
    hexdump -C "$1"|less
}

alias ..='cdcd ..'
alias ...='cdcd ../..'
alias ....='cdcd ../../..'
alias .....='cdcd ../../../..'
alias c='clear'
alias grep='egrep'
alias l='ls -FsCk'
alias la='ls -FsCka'
alias ll='ls -al'
alias md='mkdir'
alias rd='rmdir'
alias sd='screen -d -r'
alias v='vim'
alias x='exit'
  • add menu to lock xscreensaver:

    % echo 'sleep 1; xscreensaver-command --lock' >bin/xscreensaver-lock.sh
    % chmod 755 bin/xscreensaver-lock.sh

    Then add that to your main menu (RasPi, Preferences, Main Menu Editor).

  • Reboot, should be nice now.

Outstanding Issues

  • No multimedia keys

Raspbian from the Keyboard

Doing some maintenance and setup on my RasPi4, I struggled to find keyboard shortcuts. Where I did find them online, they were slightly obsolete or just not correct for my keyboard.

Some of these are specific to my Rii keyboard/trackpad combo, which has a Fn key and F-keys are "under" the media keys and arrows. A normal keyboard doesn't need to type Fn.

Key Effect
Ctrl-Alt-Fn-Del Shutdown menu
Ctrl-Esc System menu
Alt-Space Window menu
Alt-Fn-F2 Run Program dialog
Alt-Fn-F11 Fullscreen window
Alt-Tab Cycle windows
Ctrl-Q Quit most programs
Alt-Fn-F4 Kill any program
Ctrl-Alt-Arrow Left/Right packs window to side, Up fullscreen, Down not-fullscreen.
Ctrl-Alt-Fn-F1-6 Virtual Console 1-6
Ctrl-Alt-Fn-F7 GUI

I love Ctrl-Alt-Arrow keys now that I know them. It's not quite Ratpoison or other anti-mouse window managers, but it's so handy on a small screen.

If you use virtual consoles, I cannot recommend highly enough learning to use screen, so you only need to remember that one of them is open, and can restore that session in any terminal later.

I still don't know what the Chromium program menu key is, it won't tell me and the docs are useless. I loathe that every Linux program chooses a different place to put menus. It shouldn't be allowed.

Useful Shell Commands

  • lxterminal: Standard Terminal
  • omxplayer: Audio/Video player
  • scrot: Screenshot, dumps into ~ in format Y-M-D-HMS_REZ_scrot.png (which is terrible, but whatever, man). I can't generate its printscreen keycode, supposedly I can edit openbox config to add a keycode for it. Later. I can always run scrot from the Run Program dialog, or sleep 10; scrot from lxterminal and switch windows.
  • gpicview: Image viewer
  • mousepad: Simple GUI text editor. Has line numbers, paren matching, and different themes, so if you don't want to use GVim or Geany, or nano or vim from Terminal, this is nice and starts nigh-instantly.
  • leafpad: Shitty Gtk text editor. You should hit Ctrl-Esc, Preferences, Main Menu Editor, Accessories, Text Editor, Properties. If it says leafpad, change that to mousepad.

I don't have Dropbox on it, and that'd be awkward anyway, so I'm still pondering how to easily get files off it. sftp or scp works, but I'd rather have a general-purpose, auto-syncing share folder.

RasPi 400: Adorable New Keyboard Computer

This is very nice, at least in principle.

Classic home computers – BBC Micros, ZX Spectrums, Commodore Amigas, and the rest – integrated the motherboard directly into the keyboard.
No separate system unit and case; no keyboard cable. Just a computer, a power supply, a monitor cable, and (sometimes) a mouse.

Hm, the naming is obviously after the Atari 400 (so 800 will be the 8GB model?), but they don't mention Atari. Well, the criminals now doing business as "Atari SA" aren't people you want to associate with. And these are English, who couldn't afford nice computers back then.

It's not really $70, it's $100 plus a monitor, because the cabling is unusual, you should not get the no-cables computer-only box. When I got my RasPi4 I had to email them to get my micro-HDMI cables (which they did supply), and the cheapo monitor is still terrible but I haven't found a good cheap replacement. The RasPi400 also doesn't have a power switch; the CanaKit set at least gave me an inline power clicker.

Having the keyboard & computer in one gets you much closer to a nice clean cyberdeck than the current maze of wires; there's no battery pack, but in most cases what you want is a small computer in your satchel you can set down, plug in, and work. I'm dubious of using a mouse with this in most space-constrained areas (machine rooms, or cafés—in the distant future when we can go back to cafés), but trackpads and trackballs are expensive, too.

RasPi4 is critically heat-constrained, the fan runs all the time on mine or it dies. El Regerino does a teardown and review, and the giant heat sink plate seems to solve the problem. I could probably justify getting this just to have silence! Or a fedi-pal has suggested the Argon One heat-sink case, which is a much cheaper fix.

Software's still an issue. Raspbian is a relentlessly mediocre Linux variant; I said earlier I'd switch it to BSD, but that hasn't happened yet. I should update to the newer "Raspberry Pi OS" and see if it's better. … Later: Not really. You can set some better scaling options now so it's not unreadable. WOO. (I shouldn't mock, scalable UI is really fucking hard, and they've got at least most of the stock software configured for it; notably Chromium yes, but not Firefox).

Dev tools are not great on RasPiOS. Ludicrously, they suggest Python, the slowest modern language on the slowest modern hardware. Their free "Create GUIs with Python" book uses a fat layer on top of Tkinter, which is awesome for portability, totally awful for going through now 3 layers to reach hardware. No. Almost anything will be better on it. As I noted, Gauche runs, it's fine for porting small tools, and has industrial-strength (and industrial-ugly) GTK.

A much better IDE will be sudo apt-get install vim-gtk3 (gvim runs faster than vim in lxterm, though it pulls in a preposterous set of dependencies)

Just as a sanity test ("maybe a 4GB, 1.5GHz, heat-constrained computer is OK for Python!"), I wrote a tiny 10 PRINT maze program in both. Gauche fills the terminal instantly; I can see the lines being drawn by Python, and it's even slower in any IDE. That's just one random number per char, imagine doing real work!

All their programming books and the new Beginner's Guide are up for free as PDF on their MagPi books page, or now in-OS from Raspberry menu, Help, Bookshelf. Looking thru the guide, it covers:

  • Hardware tour so you can identify ports
  • Software setup
  • Programming in Scratch for kids. As I was raised on BASIC and assembly, I roll my eyes at programming by drag-and-drop instead of interactive text editing, but Scratch isn't awful, just cutesy, bulky (a 10-statement program will fill a page of the book) and very slow.
  • Programming in Python. Thonny IDE looks OK, for what it is, with integrated REPL, tabbed editing, and debugger. But IDLE does as well; both use Tkinter, and are non-fun slow on the little device.
  • A starter chapter on using the GPIO, doing wiring, digital circuits, and Scratch to blink an LED. Then controlling the Sense Hat, which is maybe the worst peripheral I've ever seen. There's plenty of other small-screen interfaces or sensor devices that'd be better, surely.
  • Appendices on how to install software, and finally an extremely inadequate tutorial on using the terminal.

For $100, it's a cute little portable computer, but the way they suggest using it will make it seem like a 1K RAM ZX-80, not the reasonably fast secondary machine (or kid's first Scheme terminal) it can be if you're not working under multiple layers of mud.

Raspberry Pi 4 Setup

In my long-running cyberdeck-building saga, I've tried a few variations. Now trying the new RasPi4-4GB from CanaKit, Rii K12 keyboard, and a very cheap terrible Elecrow 10.1" monitor. When I first got the shipment, the MicroHDMI-HDMI cable was missing, but CanaKit quickly shipped me two, in case I want to run two monitors on my very tiny computer. And then when I got everything hooked up… nothing happened. Turns out, the recommended format tool formats SD cards in ExFat, and RasPi only boots from FAT32. OS X's "new" Disk Utility is awful but did let me pick the right option, copied NOOBS, and was able to boot Raspbian! Yay!

Protip with the Rii keyboard: Little radio adapter is hidden in one of the feet. Took me a bit to figure out why it wouldn't pair. It's a weird layout, keys are a little mushier than I like (I like either classic buckling spring IBM or Northgate keys, or the thin super-crisp "Apple Magic Keyboard" keys), but it's attractive, great for the size, and the trackpad works better than I expected as a real mouse; I do have to hit the left-click keyboard button sometimes to wake it up. I may or may not stick with this forever.

I won't be staying in Raspbian, I hate Linux more than anything, but I don't want to fight with setting up BSD on a new device just yet. What I'd love is if Haiku worked on it, but BSD is probably a saner choice.

Uninstalled all the stupid stuff that's preloaded. LibreOffice can suck it, 10 different "simple IDEs" can fuck off. Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha can stay. "vi" is actually Vim, but "vim" is not installed; anyway I won't be working full-time in Vim. Did an adduser, installed zsh and chsh to zsh; fucking Lintwats still use bash after all the security holes! After some advice from Mastodon, Geany seems tolerable as a GUI editor, and it's cross-platform, good option.

There's a Chez Scheme package, but it didn't install anything and apparently is long out of date. Chicken only has the compiler, not a REPL. But Gauche installs, the "gosh" REPL runs fine, and seems to have working GL & GTK+ libraries, which may be a reasonable way to make some GUI tools for it.

Chromium is the standard browser, which whatever man, but it keeps bugging me to sign in, and I will never do that. It plays Youtubes OK, which is likely to be 75% of its runtime. I'm kind of impressed the sound works and I won't touch anything about that except volume because Linux + sound = 9th level of Hell.

I loathe the very simplistic Windows-like wm it starts with, haven't seen any "setting" to change that, probably have to go fight config files and Raspbian won't be here that long.

Now I need to finish the keyboard box, so I can make this portable, but as just a little desktop computer it's pretty sweet, and my setup cost me $220 total (plus some earlier experiments).