Hi! I’ve joined the waiting list, and I’m super excited about getting a uConsole. One of the things that I really want is a good unit for using Obsidian, and I’d like to start getting my OS ready now rather than wait for it’s arrival. Has anyone managed to set up, say, QEMU, running one of the uConsole OS images to act as a means to emulate the device? Thanks!
Just use a regular Raspberry Pi 4?
Edit: I didn’t read the question properly… but that is the closest you’ll get easily…
I use small txt files for all my configuration and then I just zip them and copy them over… manual but works!
That’s a good idea, and if I happen across a Pi 4, I may try that.
In the meanwhile, though, that does spark a thought; I can’t imagine everyone developing for devices like this are using the actual hardware, so perhaps researching RPI4 build/test environments will get me answers! Much appreciated.
I haven’t done any research specifically for RPI4 emulation stuff, but I’ve recently been using something sort of related for ESP32 hardware. Their free version is handy for testing some stuff, though the “virtual wifi” they provide in their emulators for internet access can be next to useless sometimes (I’m guessing too many people are using the free version and the connection is limited). While they don’t have support for the RPI4 or anything generally powerful, they support several small, low power, IoT focused platforms. I was kind of surprised it existed at all, as the only other option I was aware of was setting up a QEMU environment, which while documented in various places online, seems like a major project itself. And I wasn’t convinced the effort would even produce something stable and worthwhile anyway. (That might be an option for RPI4 stuff too though, I’m not sure.)
I got my hands on an rPi4. The CM image doesn’t boot. Am I missing something?
You need to install the Raspberry 4 image:
… which would defeat the purpose behind the thread.
Hmm, I’m not sure what it is you want to test then. The official ClockworkPi OS images are out of date and kind of broken anyway. So with the real device you’d want to run one of the community OS builds, which are almost all based on the standard OS they adapted to the uConsole. That adaptaion involved getting the drivers/configuration working for the display and other custom hardware, but those changes are only needed or relevant if you actually have the hardware. Otherwise, grabbing a matching version of the Debian OS should pretty much be the same as using Rex’s build of the Debian OS for the uConsole.
When I posted above, I thought you were looking to experiment with building software for the RP4, without actually having RP4 hardware. But now you’ve got the hardware, you can put the official build for whatever OS you’re looking to use on it, build software for it, etc. Then as long as that OS also has a community build (and it seems many do), you can install that custom version on the uConsole. You should be able to copy binaries you built directly from your RP4 to the uConsole, although it would be safest to build stuff again on the actual uConsole since there may be various configuration and system files that would need to be created as part of the build process, and you might miss those if you just copied binaries over.
You had mentioned an interest in Obsidan. I’d recommend installing that on the Pi you’ve got. Then either make notes of all the steps you used to install and configure it, so you can do the same on the uConsole when you set that up, or create a shell script with the actual commands you used and then just run that shell script on the uConsole when it arrives. It may be that not everything can be done easily on the command line alone, but I’m guessing the installation can be automated. I’m sure it’s possible to copy over Obsidian configuration files and settings, but you’d need to research that and make sure you knew where everything was installed so you could be sure to copy it all over to the uConsole. I’ve only used Obsidian a little bit, but I’m pretty sure for user created content, it tends to keep everything in a single directory so that should be easy to migrate over. But I’m not sure where it stores overall Obsidian settings, etc. Hopefully it’s well documented on their website.
Look like this is the sort of thing that comes up in Obsidain related forum posts, as well. WHile this specific example isn’t for Linux, so the path/location may not be the same, it looks like the Obsidian folks have made it relatively easy to migrate from one machine to another:
Which is why I edited my reply:
Edit: I didn’t read the question properly… but that is the closest you’ll get easily…
Let me restate. It’s going to be a while before the device gets here. As much as is possible, what I’d really love to do is have an environment already on an SD card that will plug and play. For example, I love i3, and so having my i3 environment ready, along with the tools I intend to EDC with, scripts for handling unison sync, etc etc, would be really nice. Now, before you say it, I know can build a lot of that out without having to actually use the SD card’s image. And that’s what I’ve started doing already. But what I’d hoped for was a means to get closer to the environment.