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newsRaspberry Pi 4 first impressions
Yesterday posted a proposed purchase-list of Raspberry Pi4 and support items:
https://bkhome.org/news/202101/oe-compile-for-raspberry-pi-4.html
Today bought them. I mentioned yesterday that had ordered a
barrel-socket to USB Type-C plug adapter from China, so that I can use
my 5V @ 6A power supply with the Pi4:
https://bkhome.org/news/202101/ordered-usb-type-c-to-55x21mm-adapter.html
But today bought the official 5V @ 3A supply, so as to get up and
running straight away. Surprised how small it is, wonder if it can
really deliver 3A.
This post is just a quick report on setting up the Pi. I thought that
it would just be a few minutes, plug everything together and power-on,
however, took a bit longer...
That laminated acrylic case was a bit of a headache, quite poorly
designed. Here is an end-on photo, note the bend of the top laminate:
The phone wide-angle lens does distort images a bit, but apart from
that, there is a definite curve on the top laminate. This is due to the
USB sockets being higher than the ethernet socket. Also along the
bottom, the USB sockets are not in a straight line with the bottom of
the ethernet socket.
I am wondering if the board layout changed a bit since the case was
designed. Anyway, I fixed it with a bit of surgery on the clear layer on
the bottom of the USB and ethernet sockets. Used a file so that the
ethernet socket can sit a bit lower:
...actually, filed it a bit more after taking that photo, almost
halfway through. Also chamfered the front edge -- notice that the USB
sockets have a little lip on top and bottom -- the top lips were able to
sit just on the outside, however, the bottom lips needed the chamfer.
Due to this messing around, cannot recommend this case.
Another thing that I did not like, and I know that this is just
aesthetics, but didn't like the power plug for the fan sticking up out
of the case. Just now reminded of my Hardkernel ARM board, that has
dedicated socket for the fan power, and also mounting holes on the board
for the fan, and spring-loaded screws to attach the fan -- so
professional.
Photo shows the "aesthetically unpleasing" wiring for the fan:
Plugged everything together, works great, snappy performance running Raspberry Pi OS (Raspian):
The fan is a little bit noisy. As it sits only a few millimetres
above the chips, there is no room for heatsinks, but that closeness does
ensure good airflow over the chips.
I would like to thank Michael, David, Paul, Feodor and Sage, for hardware suggestions.
Just for the record, the Hardkernel board that I was referring to is this one, that I bought in 2016:
https://bkhome.org/news/201609/bought-the-odroid-xu4.html
...pity it is only a 32-bit CPU.
Tags: tech
Ordered USB Type-C to 5.5x2.1mm adapter
I have posted about possibly buying a rpi4:
https://bkhome.org/news/202101/oe-compile-for-raspberry-pi-4.html
I own a 5V at 6A power supply with a 5.5x2.1mm male plug. Also, a
short 5.5x2.1mm female barrel socket to micro-USB male plug, that I used
to power my rpi3.
Problem is, the rpi4 has USB type-C power input. Hunted online, could
not find an adapter in Australia. Started with the local stores, Jaycar
and Altronics, no joy, then searched online.
Eventually ordered from China:
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/402153703702
...expected delivery by end of month.
Tags: tech
The PinePhone continues to evolve
I have been watching this project with interest, also Purism's
Librem 5 phone, and have posted about them a few times, for example:
https://bkhome.org/news/201902/pinephone-development-kit.html
https://bkhome.org/news/201910/librem-5-and-pinephone-assembly.html
https://bkhome.org/news/201911/librem-5-hardware-evaluation.html
...that last link is a rather harsh evaluation by a hardware
engineer, and it has proved to be true that the Librem 5 has struggled
with battery life.
Manufacturers put a huge effort into extending battery life, and my
Huawei phone is a prime example. Even after all-day usage, it
still has 70-80% charge left, and if just idle will last for -- well I
don't know, probably weeks.
The PinePhone has enormous advantages for me, very cheap, and the modem has frequencies supported by the telcos in Australia.
A third advantage is the popularity of the PinePhone and the
development going on in multiple fronts. See this blog post for recent
development highlights:
https://www.pine64.org/2020/12/15/december-update-the-longest-one-yet/
...two items in that blog post stand out for me. Improvements to the
modem power consumption, and the enthusiastic take-up of the i2c
interface on the back of the phone.
Phones have the modem builtin to the SoC, and the Librem 5 and
Pinephone separate modem, done for security reasons, has made reduction
of power consumption a major challenge. So, the breakthrough with the
PinePhone modem is very good news. Though, that new modem firmware might
not be in shipped phones for awhile.
There is no other phone that I know of, that has an interface in the
back, for adding custom devices. The i2c interface in the PinePhone has
proved to be very popular and some great products are coming out.
Then there's the docking station. The phone is designed from scratch
to work with the docking station, and this has always been one of the
dreams of "convergence" -- have a docking station at home, with USB
keyboard and mouse connected, and TV or monitor, plug in the phone, and
you have a regular Linux-based PC.
So, you might have picked up from my positive statements that I like
the PinePhone. Yeah, it is on the cards that I will buy one, but might
wait until mid-2021 or thereabouts, to get the more refined iteration of
the hardware design and more fully-functional software.
Tags: tech
Googled has tightened restrictions for login
I discovered this a couple of days ago, went to login to my Gmail
account, and got a message that my browser does not have javascript
enabled or is an incompatible browser.
This is on my laptop, which has SeaMonkey 2.53.3. I just checked, The latest EasyOS has SM 2.53.4, and can login to Gmail OK.
What I did with SM 2.53.3, is go to "about:config" then search for "useragent", then there is this parameter:
general.useragent.compatMode.strict-firefox
Which is set to "false". Right-click on it and choose "toggle", so it then becomes "true". Then login to Google works.
I think that it is really dumb that some companies will bar a browser
based on the user agent string, given how easy it is to change it.
You can check your browser user agent string here:
https://www.whatismybrowser.com/detect/what-is-my-user-agent
Running 2.53.4 right now, and without the above parameter toggled to "true", this is what I get:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0 SeaMonkey/2.53.4
If I were to toggle that parameter to true, the user agent is the same except doesn't have the "SeaMonkey/2.53.4" on the end.
I am wondering whether I should set that parameter as "true" by default? It is simply an entry in /root/.mozilla/*/prefs.js:
user_pref("general.useragent.compatMode.strict-firefox", true);
If anyone reports this login problem with latest SM, then will do.
EDIT 2020-10-22:
How about that, yesterday was able to login to Google with my 2.53.4 SM,
this morning can't. Setting "strict-firefox" user agent has fixed
it, so that will be the default for next release of EasyOS.
Tags: tech
How to boot Win10 from a USB stick
Over the years, I have not had good experiences with Windows 10. There were a couple of posts to the "ethos" tag in this blog:
https://bkhome.org/news/201903/microsoft-fails-on-new-laptop.html
A few days ago, I accidentally wiped the Windows 10 installation on
my Lenovo desktop PC, purchased early 2020. Here are some posts:
https://bkhome.org/news/202003/documentation-for-lenovo-ideacentre-510s-07icb.html
I was developing EasyDD, and accidentally wrote a EasyOS image file
to the NVME drive, destroying the Win10 installation, as reported here:
https://bkhome.org/news/202006/enhancements-for-easydd-script.html
The NVME drive had four partitions. partition-1 was the fat32 esp
boot partition, partition-2 was only 16MB don't know what for,
partition-3 is the actual installation (ntfs C: drive), and partition-4
was a ntfs 1GB "recovery drive".
Writing the 1.3GB image file to the NVME drive destroyed the GPT
(GUID Partition Table) and the first three partitions. However,
partition-4 was still intact, and I thought that I could use it to
reinstall Win10.
There is a secondary, backup, GPT at the end of the drive, so running
"gdisk nvme0n1" I was able to use the secondary GPT and restore the
first GPT.
But no way could I figure out how to use partition-4 to recover Windows!!!
I downloaded Win10 ISO from an official Microsoft website ...and then the fun and games started.
The ISO is about 5GB, too big for a 4.7GB DVD. After some searching,
the only solution is to use a double-layer DVD. There was lots of
advice, including on official MS sites, to write the ISO to a USB-stick.
Boot the ISO from a USB-stick, reasonable yes? No!!! I tried and
tried, googled, heaps of other frustrated people reported the same
problem, it won't boot. After some hours, I discovered that MS has used
the udf filesystem for the ISO, which the UEFI-firmware on my desktop PC
doesn't recognise. And, it seems, same situation for everyone else.
Why use udf, why not iso9660? There is a file, "install.wim", that is
4.2GB, however, iso9660 only supports files up to 4GB. hence, one or
two years ago, MS changed to udf. Note, fat32 also has the 4GB file-size
limitation.
Can't boot from a USB-stick, that is bad news. What to do?
Well, we can make a Win10 bootable USB-stick, with some ingenuity. What I did was use a EasyOS USB-stick, and gutted it.
EasyOS on a USB flash drive has two partitions, a 640MB fat32 esp
boot partition, with reFind boot manager, and a second ext4 partition
that fills the drive.
I reformatted the second partition as ntfs, and copied the contents
of the ISO file to it. Like this, where sdb2 is the mounted USB-stick
second partition:
# mkdir mntpt
# mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb2 /mnt/sdb2 (or in Easy just click on the partition)
# mount -t udf Win10_2004_EnglishInternational_x64.iso mntpt
# cp -a mntpt/* /mnt/sdb2/
# sync
# umount mntpt
# umount /mnt/sdb2 (or in Easy just click the close-box)
In the first partition, I deleted everything except the "EFI" folder,
and in /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT/drivers, deleted 'ext4_x64.efi' and copied
/usr/share/refind/drivers_x64/ntfs_x64.efi to /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT/drivers
(you will need reFind package installed).
/mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT only needs 'BOOTX64.EFI' and 'refind.conf', and I edited the latter to only have this:
timeout 10
textonly on
textmode 0
scanfor manual
menuentry "Windows 10 USB" {
volume usbwin10ntfs
loader \efi\boot\bootx64.efi
}
Where "usbwin10ntfs" is the label that I assigned to the second partition:
# blkid /dev/sdb2
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="usbwin10ntfs" UUID="47360BD96837F0BC" TYPE="ntfs"
...I used Gparted to set that label, but whatever it was before would be OK, no need to change it.
Rebooted the PC, holding down the <F12> key to get the UEFI
boot menu, and there was the USB-stick, and was able to boot Win10.
However, no way could I find out how to use that partition-4 to perform a
recovery, had to do a fresh install to partition-3. The install wrote
appropriate stuff into the partition-1 fat32 boot partition also.
I was able to jump through these hoops in Linux, but Windows users,
well, maybe their only solution is to use a double-layer DVD, and
reinstall Win10.
Tags: tech
Documentation for Lenovo Ideacentre 510S 07ICB
GCMartin expressed interest in this PC. He asked for the Blowfish
speed test result in HardInfo, and I reported "1.83", which he
responded is very good.
For anyone who might be interested, all documentation is online. The
PC only comes with a tiny piece of paper with getting started
instructions. The PDFs are here:
Here are earlier reports on this PC:
https://bkhome.org/news/202003/multi-booting-buster-pyro-and-windows-on-new-pc.html
https://bkhome.org/news/202003/how-many-cores-does-an-intel-i3-cpu-have.html
https://bkhome.org/news/202003/mke2fs-created-wrong-block-size.html
Tags: tech
The resurrection of GOOSEE Diagrammer
Back in 1999, I wrote a book, titled "Flow design for embedded
systems", published in the USA by R&D Books. It describes a
diagramming technique that I invented, for designing code, prior to
actual coding. There was a floppy disk attached inside the back cover,
with a Windows 32-bit application called "GOOFEE Diagrammer".
The book is out of print, however, used copies are available, for example at Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Design-Embedded-Systems-Object-Oriented/dp/087930555X
I received an email from Scott M., asking if I have the companion
disk. Scott collects old books, and he has two copies of my book,
without the floppy disk. I replied that around 2009, when I lived near
the small town of Perenjori in Western Australia, my house was burgled,
and my 4TB external backup drive was stolen, which had a lot of that old
stuff in it. But, I told him that I would look and see if the companion
disk is archived somewhere else, such as in a CD/DVD.
I have an old computer, with Cyrix 5x86 CPU, Zip-drive, and 20GB IDE
hard drive, that was my main workhorse in 1999. I got rid of most of my
old computers when left Perenjori, however hung onto that one. I did
take a few things out of it at some time, so it no longer works. So,
need to be able to access that old IDE drive, and I even found an old
100MB Zip disk, that I think has GOOFEE development on it.
So I bought one of these, for AU$28:
...the photo shows it plugged into my Zip drive. Note, it has a IDE
power plug as well. On the right is the cable to the mains power
adapter, and centre cable is the USB3 cable to the PC.
Unfortunately, my 100MB Zip disk doesn't work, Inserts OK, whirring sounds, but nothing more. The 20GB IDE HD works fine.
Yes, I found the companion disk, but also found the development files
for "GOOSEE Diagrammer". GOOFEE is an acronym for "Graphical Object
Orientation For Embedded Engineering". It is a GUI tool for designing a
program, however, I realised that it also had the potential of also
generating the code, as C code -- hence GOOSEE Diagrammer was born.
GOOSEE is an ancronym for "Graphical Object Oriented Software
Engineering Environment".
GOOFEE Diagrammer got mixed reviews. One guy thought that it was very
useful for code design where he worked, and suggested an alternative
acronym "Graphical Obfuscation Operation For Eternal Employment"!
Anyway, the C code generation part of it (introduced with GOOSEE
Diagammer) never got publicly released. I lost interest, as I had moved
onto "EVE"
EVE
"EVE" is an acronym for "Embedded Vector Editor", a general-purpose
vector drawing application. See here (source code also available):
https://bkhome.org/archive/eve/
https://bkhome.org/archive/goosee/evemanual/evemanual.htm
https://bkhome.org/archive/goosee/evemanual/evewemanual.htm
GOOSEE Diagrammer
This extension to GOOFEE Diagrammer, with generation of C code, never
got released. I think that it reached version 1.4beta1, however, I can
only find version 1.3 on my old 20GB IDE hard drive. I even installed
'testdisk' via the PPM, a file recovery tool, to no avail.
'goosee.exe' is a Win32 application, and still works in Windows 10.
What I found has now been uploaded. Here is an introduction:
https://bkhome.org/archive/goofee/goosee/
Example from above link:
User manual:
https://bkhome.org/archive/goofee/goosee_manual/manual.htm
Tarballs are available:
https://bkhome.org/archive/goofee/goofee_companion_disk.tar.gz
https://bkhome.org/archive/goofee/goosee.tar.gz
https://bkhome.org/archive/goofee/goosee_manual.tar.gz
https://bkhome.org/archive/goofee/goosee_dev.tar.gz
...the last one is the source code. GOOFEE and GOOSEE Diagrammer are
written in assembly language, and require MASM, Microsoft's assembler,
to compile. Which is free:
https://bkhome.org/archive/goosee/x86/winmasm.zip
Useful links here:
https://bkhome.org/archive/goosee/x86/
Tags: tech
Librem 5 hardware evaluation
I have posted about the Librem 5 phone, the last post is here:
https://bkhome.org/news/201910/librem-5-and-pinephone-assembly.html
I have wondered about whether it is viable from the viewpoint of
power consumption, and yesterday came across an evaluation of the Librem
5 hardware design, by an engineer with expertise in the hardware of
this field:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/dnmwlc/an_electrical_engineers_opinion_on_the_librem_5/
...it also raises other concerns.
Will Purism get the phone to a point where it is basically usable?
Not have to be recharged twice per day, and able to connect while on the
move?
There is mention of the reality not living up to the hype, and this interview with a former employee of Purism is revealing:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zlatan-Todoric-Interview
Small businesses, of a certain kind, depend on hype for their
survival. Hype, spin, whatever word you want to use, to catch people.
Quite possibly the ensnared people will be satisfied with the result.
Purism may survive and may actually deliver products that satisfy
customers -- well, their laptops seem to be already achieving the latter
goal. On the journey between dream and delivery, they need cash, the
money must roll in, hence hype, or selling the dream, is essential.
I am reminded of an Australian TV series, "Very small business",
about a business named "Worldwide Business Group", that was perpetually
on the verge of financial collapse. The guy running this business
published obscure magazines that nobody read, and at the start of the
series he wanted to hire a journalist -- he found a guy who was a
professional journalist but had had a mental breakdown, and was wanting
to get back into journalism -- he was taken on on-probation, or whatever
word you would use when you work for no pay.
Here is a trailer for the series, very low resolution (144p):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=uF_4Sdrp864
...I think that you need to join i-Tunes to view the full episodes.
There was a later series "Back in very small business", that I have not
seen.
Tags: tech