Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

01micko · Joined: 11 Oct 2008 Posts: 8670 Location: qld

Hello Mark

Zap6 is a bit unstable though, I have to revisit it at some point soon and get to the bottom of a few bugs and build a 3.8+ kernel to take advantage of the f2fs stuff we are working on. That will be cool.

Oh yes, saw your puppybrowser post too. That would be a good addition. I have the 256 MB pi and chrome is very slow with it, Seamonke/Iceape were a little better. One good image I did try was one by sironm (name on pi forum) based on slackware-13.37 with midori as the browser, It was quite usable. A trouble with midori though is of course the many needed dependencies. I toyed with the idea of slack based arm-pup however slackware bins aren't optimised for pi so raspbian is the way to go for the future based pups IMHO.

I'm still a bit noob with the ARM stuff but when I get a bit more time I will have some more fun with it.

Cheers

MU · Posted: Mon 25 Mar 2013, 07:58 Post subject:

yes Mick, there still are some glitches, but that does not disturb me.

The Raspi is too slow to be used as a desktop computer for everyday use, but great for special purposes.

I want to build a "digital lens" for my mum.
She has bad eyesight and with her 69 years does not want to learn to use a computer.

So I need a device that can be turned on with a switch, boots into the camera application, and then can be switched off again.
No keyboard, no mouse.

The raspi is ideal, even for long term use, as it needs no fan.

1 fps with a HDTV cam is enough for the purpose to assemble the cam in a small box, and add some LEDs for good image quality.

Then she can read the paper newspaper or watch old fotos with this device.

The Logitech C 910 (not 920) is not cheap (80 Euro), but ideal. It has a wide angle (78°), autofocus, and high resolution. Like this it can display newspapers and such very clear with around 9 cm distance.

I have this working already with raspian wheezy (just need to assemble the box now), and now want some slight optimizations like faster boot.
So I tried Zap6, and though the full new kernel boots slower, the results look promising.
Will remove some modules again to speed up boot (need no sound on my device).

When it is finished, I think I will create an updatescript that applies all my changes to a zap6.

Looking forward further projects of yours Smile

I think I will buy 2 other raspis for myself to set up a fileserver and a media center or so.

Have a good time, Mark

headfound · Joined: 24 Jun 2006 Posts: 369 Location: England

mark,

could she not just use a magnifying glass, like my mother does?

MU · Posted: Mon 25 Mar 2013, 19:23 Post subject:

Headfound, yes, she actually does.

But try it yourself:
the lens is heavy, and the letters look distorted.

Myself I prefer to move around a small box containing a camera, with a plain image on the monitor.
And the zoomfactor is higher.

On a 22'' Monitor, a 1 Eurocent coin has the size of up to 7 of my fingers side by side. So the zoomfactor is approx 8, and could even be higher with a larger monitor.
The glass-lenses typically just have a gain by factor 3.

I want to finish everything, and then present it to her.
If she still prefers the glasslens, it does not matter, as I have already several other ideas on how to use the raspi Smile

headfound · Joined: 24 Jun 2006 Posts: 369 Location: England

sounds really interesting mark!
I wonder if it could be combined into a system for older people - build a basic mouse and camera into one unit with onscreen keyboard so they are able to do other simple tasks too.

MU · Posted: Tue 26 Mar 2013, 16:13 Post subject:

here are fotos of my prototype.

The sytem (Zap6 with the new Kernel) boots into the camera viewer in 15 to 25 seconds. I have not found out yet, why it is sometimes faster, sometimes slightly slower.

(I run "exec luvcview -s 1712x960" from /root/.xinitrc instead of jwm and rox.)

Resolution is 1792x960 on a 1680x1050 Monitor.
I later will add a small puppybasic program, that places a black borderless window over the controls of luvcview (have this done on raspian already).

The camera is placed in a carton box.
I also added 4 LEDs to light up the box. They are soldered in parallel, each with a 470 Ohm resistor. They have their own power supply with 9 V. I think I will use 8 or 10 LEDs finally for optimal light. I have cut the round end of the LEDs to get diffused light, as with the round bulbs they act like spots.

I also tried to power them using a passive usb-hub from the raspi, but they flickered. I think the raspi and cam together need quite some power, so I don't want to stress the usb-ports too much.

The image is excellent, even better than on the fotos (they got distorted a bit using a webcam in the dark to take the fotos).

The image needs around 2-3 seconds to adjust if you move the cam, this is working pretty good.

I finally will place the LEDs on a circuit board, at moment they are "freely wired". Apart from such minor fixes the system now is ready to present it to my mom Smile

Mark

antiloquax · Joined: 27 Jan 2012 Posts: 405

I haven't checked in here for ages. :0
I will have to download the latest image and have a play.

I have been working with arch instead, but my latest remix of arch is quite heavily puppy inspired.

If anyone gets a chance to test it, I'd really appreciate the feedback.

.zip here

Wac · Joined: 20 May 2009 Posts: 31

The sound on my Raspberry Pi`s earphone port does not work, is there any fix for this jet? I am using zap6.

davids45 · Joined: 26 Nov 2006 Posts: 1069 Location: Chatswood, NSW

G'day,

Because it's so cold here (day-time and it's only 14C!!), I thought I'd stay inside and try to set up a print server using a Raspberry Pi and an oldish Epson Stylus Photo RX430 (USB-only, ink-jet, all-in-one).

Started yesterday with Raspbian on the NOOBS package from Pi but gave up after a day wasted because of sudos and non-permissions and a generally extremely slow response (Midori - horrible), as well as being unable to print when I finally got CUPS running.

Using an old TV (Composite) doesn't help as the graphics are oversized with its coarse display. Generally the 'OK' buttons, etc are off the bottom of the display unless the window is maximised.

Enough of that so today it was back to Puppy. But I couldn't get BK's SAPs running (no lit-up green LED on the Pi so my 8GB SD card wasn't booting for some reason), so switched to ZAP and had 'instant' success (instant is a relative term with Pis).

Took a few goes to get internet access (wizard buttons were off the screen and I wanted to choose a static address as this was suggested by the Raspbian how-tos for a network print server).

Iceape was giving me the start-up "bin" problem box I was told to ignore but then would browse (slowly).
The Pi comparison between PuppyZap & Raspbian felt like lightning versus lard.

Opened Cups with the wizard and tried set up the Epson as a local printer (connected by a USB cable) but found no Epson drivers were included in ZAP. Downloaded a Debian Gutenprint package (5.2.7) and eventually found the Epson ppd in gz format. Copied the ungz-ed ppd to the Cups /usr/share/ directory and Cups seemed to accept this when browsed to it and indicated the Epson was now an installed local printer on the Pi.

But I can not print a test page (via the maintenance option). Cups replies that there is no file or directory found (?). Is this Cups because Cups has been trimmed for ZAP?

As an alternative printer check, I tried to print a one-line file from the text editor as the Epson was showing up as the default printer but nothing happened.

Unplugging the printer's USB lead from the Pi and into this desktop and everything will print.

So.................can anyone advise me on how to get the Epson printer printing locally from the Pi?

David S.

And I know that I could get a brand-new network-enabled ink-jet printer for a few dollars and should put the old Epson in the bin (the Pi too?). It's just the principle of the thing. Even if I fluke it with the Epson, I'll probably keep using our colour laser network printer anyway, it is much faster and better quality Smile

.

davids45 · Joined: 26 Nov 2006 Posts: 1069 Location: Chatswood, NSW

G'day,
Just an up-dated up-date on the above post.

Puppy PIPrint Server achieved (1 out of 2)
By copying all the files in the first partition made by ZAP to the not-loading SAP SD card, I got SAP booting and working and, with a bit of a learning curve climbed, found SAP will function as a print server for the Epson Stylus Photo RX430 with other Linux (Puppy) computers on my home network. Unfortunately I had not got a Windows computer (7 or XP) to connect immediately. It's her-indoors' printer and her Windows computers so it was a problem on the 'local' network until I entered the full and correct details for the printer address and name to the the Windows 'Add Printer' prompts Embarassed

. And now even a Windows computer can print through the Pi to the Epson Very Happy

.

ZAP problem with CUPS 1.5.3 unfixed
I think ZAP has a cut-down CUPS-1.5.3? There are few printers listed in the 'Add Printer' options. With a ppd file added by me for the Epson RX430, CUPS seems to add the printer but still gives the "Unable to print test page: No such file or directory" message and then "/commandtoepson" not available: No such file or directory" Status message if I try the "Print Test Page" in the Maintenace options.
Trying to print a simple text file from Geany where the Epson is listed as a 'Local Printer', printing fails (CUPS State is "stopped") with the Status message "/rastertogutenprint.5.2" not available: no such file or directory"
I do see cupssddk_1.5.3-1 listed as a CUPS transitional package in the System section of the ZAP Puppy Package Manager under debian-wheezy-main. HoweverZAP does not let me install this from the Puppy Package Manager (mirrors wont respond - 404 message). Do I need a gutenprint drivers package to correctly add the Epson, and if so, from where/what type and how to install such?

Thanks for any ideas.

David S.

starhawk · Posted: Mon 22 Dec 2014, 23:09 Post subject:

What is the status of this PupPi version? I now have a RasPi (a friend gave me one) and I would like to get Puppy running on it. I can assist with testing but my dev skills are barely there so I can't really program anything Sad

starhawk · Posted: Thu 01 Jan 2015, 22:03 Post subject:

bark_bark_bark · Joined: 05 Jun 2012 Posts: 1935 Location: Wisconsin USA

It would be nice to see some more progress on this project.

starhawk · Posted: Sun 04 Jan 2015, 01:20 Post subject:

vtpup · Posted: Wed 14 Jan 2015, 10:52 Post subject:

Sorry, missed this thread before I started another RPi thread in Puppy Derrivatives -- though in that one I'm talking about Squeezed Arm puppy Alpha 4.

With regard to the slowness issue -- I/m running a B+ board which has 512 megsof memory, and overclocked to 900 mhz without problems. The standard Raspbian raspi-config program allows overclocking without voiding the RPi warranty.

I'm also running root/ on an external USB drive (either thumb or HD) in Raspbian, which speeds things up quite a bit compared to the SD card. The sdcard is simply used at boot time, and can be slow and 2 gigs in size (even that isn't needed technically, but is a minimum available supported size)

I hate to see this project abandoned because I see great potential here with a $35 computer.

Berryboot offers Squeezed ARM Alpha4 as one of the OS choices, but not Zap6 -- if you want more interest in developing this, maybe we should get that out there.

The Raspi community doesn't understand the advantages of Puppy, and with some small but simple to correct UI flaws in the Squeezed Arm puppy, people are quickly discouraged from going further with it. I'd like to solve these issues if we can. There are 3 million boards out there, I believe.