Help test the next Debian image (wheezy)

[asb]

<I'm not sure this strictly Wheezy related>

I'm using the RPi.GPIO python module to drive a GPIO pin.
1) When I run python as normal user, I get the error below.
2) When running python as root, it goes OK.
See below.

I'm hoping there is a better solution than running python sudo. Tips appreciated.

If someone has a udev rule that works with gpio I'd love to see it. See https://github.com/asb/spindle/issues/100

The latest version of RPi.GPIO uses /dev/mem so the goalposts have moved! You still need to be superuser to run GPIO though.

The latest version of RPi.GPIO uses /dev/mem so the goalposts have moved! You still need to be superuser to run GPIO though.

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ls -al /sys/class/gpio/export
--w------- 1 root root 4096 Jul 13 20:05 /sys/class/gpio/export
pi@raspberrypi ~ $

FYI: I hoped the w only for root was the problem, so I tried the ugly 'chmod a+w' like below, but the error still appears.

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pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cd /sys/class/
pi@raspberrypi /sys/class $ sudo chmod a+w gpio/
pi@raspberrypi /sys/class $ sudo chmod a+w gpio/*
pi@raspberrypi /sys/class $ sudo chmod a+w gpio/*/*
pi@raspberrypi /sys/class $ sudo chmod a+w gpio/*/*/*
pi@raspberrypi /sys/class $ sudo chmod a+w gpio/*/*/*/*
pi@raspberrypi /sys/class $ sudo chmod a+w gpio/*/*/*/*/*
pi@raspberrypi /sys/class $ cd
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ python
Python 2.7.3rc2 (default, Apr 23 2012, 04:52:06)
[GCC 4.6.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
>>> GPIO.setup(11, GPIO.OUT)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/RPi.GPIO-0.2.0-py2.7.egg/RPi/GPIO/__init__.py", line 106, in setup
    with open('/sys/class/gpio/gpio%s/direction'%id, 'w') as f:
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/sys/class/gpio/gpio17/direction'
>>>
pi@raspberrypi ~ $


More GPIO stuff (see http://eva-quirinius.blogspot.nl/2012/0 ... ights.html for my Raspi / GPIO project):

I wanted to install RPi.GPIO 0.3.1a. I got this error:

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...
source/py_gpio.c:23:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1


Google says I should solve the Python.h error message by installing python-dev:

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$ sudo apt-get install python-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libssl-dev libssl-doc python2.7-dev
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libssl-dev libssl-doc python-dev python2.7-dev
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded.
Need to get 31.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 41.9 MB of additional disk space will be used.

Ouch: 41MB additional disk space?

The good news is that GPIO 0.3.1 now indeed compiled/installed correctly and works, but do I really need python-dev plus its dependencies, and provide the 41MB extra disk space? Or is there an easier way to install GPIO 0.3.1? Maybe there is module "python-GPIO" available or possible?

You can download a .deb file for RPi.GPIO from http://code.google.com/p/raspberry-gpio ... loads/list - install this using:

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$ wget http://raspberry-gpio-python.googlecode.com/files/python-rpi.gpio_0.3.1a-1_armel.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i python-rpi.gpio_0.3.1a-1_armel.deb
 

This will be apt-gettable in the near future. The extra dependencies you needed for building it are not needed for running it.

You can download a .deb file for RPi.GPIO from http://code.google.com/p/raspberry-gpio ... loads/list - install this using:

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$ wget http://raspberry-gpio-python.googlecode.com/files/python-rpi.gpio_0.3.1a-1_armel.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i python-rpi.gpio_0.3.1a-1_armel.deb
 

This will be apt-gettable in the near future. The extra dependencies you needed for building it are not needed for running it.

Great (2x)! Thank you!

Short questions:
- can I install the rfbb kernel module easily?
- can the rfbb kernel module become a part of the distribution (if not already)?

Longer explanation:

I would like to use the rfbb (RF BitBanger, see https://github.com/tandersson/rf-bitbanger) kernel module. The instruction says "make KERNELDIR=~/linux", but that gives errors. And I must say I don't understand the "~/linux" part: a "linux" directory in my home dir? That's not there.
I tried installing the kernel source, and point KERNELDIR to that, but that gave other make/compile errors. Which I was able to solve, getting yet another set of make/compile errors.

So ... tips appreciated.

Does it have I2C/SPI drivers like bootc's kernel?

After apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade the image contains two drivers spi-bcm2708.ko and i2c-bcm2708.ko that are loaded. But there are no device files for them.

After modprobe i2c-dev there are two device files created: /dev/i2c-0 and /dev/i2c-1

Any idea how to create device file(s) for accessing spi interface?

@asb, on http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1605#comment-27462 you wrote:

If you were using my wheezy beta: This release uses a different ABI for faster performance. Sadly this means it’s not possible to upgrade via apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. What you have is fine and will continue to be supported, but you will notice big improvements when you’re able to write a new SD card.

... so your advice is to start using the new image "2012-07-15-wheezy-raspbian"?

A few questions:
- is "raspi-config" in that image? If not, can I just copy "/usr/bin/raspi-config" to the new installation and use it?
- how can you identify the image you're using? My current image's uname says "Linux raspberrypi 3.1.9+ #138 PREEMPT Tue Jun 26 16:27:52 BST 2012 armv6l GNU/Linux", but that will change due to updates? On Ubuntu, there is /etc/lsb-release, but I can't find that.
- technical question: do raspbian and your wheezy use the same repositories?

Thanks. And thank you for your work and help.

Sander

[asb]

@asb, on http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1605#comment-27462 you wrote:

If you were using my wheezy beta: This release uses a different ABI for faster performance. Sadly this means it’s not possible to upgrade via apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. What you have is fine and will continue to be supported, but you will notice big improvements when you’re able to write a new SD card.

... so your advice is to start using the new image "2012-07-15-wheezy-raspbian"?

A few questions:
- is "raspi-config" in that image? If not, can I just copy "/usr/bin/raspi-config" to the new installation and use it?
- how can you identify the image you're using? My current image's uname says "Linux raspberrypi 3.1.9+ #138 PREEMPT Tue Jun 26 16:27:52 BST 2012 armv6l GNU/Linux", but that will change due to updates? On Ubuntu, there is /etc/lsb-release, but I can't find that.
- technical question: do raspbian and your wheezy use the same repositories?

Yes, that's my advice.

You want to look at /etc/rpi-issue or /boot/issue.txt which will identify when the image was generated. raspi-config is included - you'll find this new raspbian-based image to be pretty much identical to this armel image but faster. Both the raspbian and armel wheezy using archive.raspberrypi.org for some of the foundation packages, but the main package repositories are different as raspbian uses an armhf ABI.

I put the wheezy-raspbian image on the 4gb SanDisk SDcard (class 4) I'd put Wheezy on previously, and it is much better, 20 secs to boot fully & 10 secs to bring up lxde fully. Midori appears almost instantly and without going to 100% CPU. I'll put /root on the USB drive later and see what the speeds are on there.

A bit off the point but I prefer fxce to lxde. I had it on the Squeeze distro and it installed without fuss (with sudo apt-get xfce) and was quicker than lxde. I tried installing it on the Wheezy distro and had all sorts of problems, with it not coming up, missing file messages etc. I reinstalled it from Synaptic, and also tried installing task-xfce-desktop which is supposed to install the whole package but I still couldn't get it to run. I read that xfce 4.8.1 is supposed to be compatible with Wheezy so has anyone managed to install it successfully?

thanks

ren

Yesterday evening I put /root on a USB drive (8gb SanDisk Cruzer). It has really slowed everything down. The easiest comparison to make is bringing up lxde - fully populated in 13 secs with /root on the SD card, 60 secs with /root on the USB drive.

When I first started using the USB drives with the Squeeze & Wheezy distros (2 or 3 weeks ago) there seemed to be a slight speed advantage with them, but the last few update have changed things. I would like to use the USB drives if possible. During the boot sequence I can't see anything odd other than the GET_EVENT/TUR issue which is handled. Is anyone else having similar experiences? I wonder if it is just this (brand of) USB drive (although the Transcend one I have is hardly any better) or is it something to do with the drivers, perhaps? The SD card is only 4gb so I'll need to get a larger one if I am going to have everything on the card.

ren

I'm enjoying wheezy, but can't install chromium either.
sudo apt-get install chromium browser, seems like it's working at first but doesn't install properly.

help?
(or is there another webkit browser I could install?)

I'm enjoying wheezy, but can't install chromium either.
sudo apt-get install chromium browser, seems like it's working at first but doesn't install properly.

help?
(or is there another webkit browser I could install?)

If you install the new Raspbian image (as adviced by asb), you can install Chromium as described and discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=63&t=11800

hi,

does anyone know if there will be a minimal install offered for wheezy at all? i am not using my raspberry pi with a GUI (x11, xorg) at all, so having all those packages installed is a waste of space on my SD card

[stevepdp]

does anyone know if there will be a minimal install offered for wheezy at all?

This Raspbian installer will let you set up a minimal wheezy environment.

does anyone know if there will be a minimal install offered for wheezy at all?

This Raspbian installer will let you set up a minimal wheezy environment.

There's a few stripped down Raspbian images also available.
Also one that I'm making with a customised raspi-config

re:

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Openbox Message: Unable to find a valid menu file "/usr/share/lxde/openbox/menu.xml"

If you edit lxde-rc.xml, you'll find that this path to the menu.xml file is specified there. If you change it (as the comments suggest) to

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$HOME/.config/openbox/menu.xml

this error goes away.

-JRS

re:

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Openbox Message: Unable to find a valid menu file "/usr/share/lxde/openbox/menu.xml"

This message still occurs with the 2013-02-09 image. To make it go away:
- create the folder "/usr/share/lxde/openbox"
- copy to this folder the file "menu.xml" from "/etc/xdg/openbox/menu.xml"

Tip: to clear the .xsession-errors file of content

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pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cat /dev/null > ~/.xsession-errors