PiBox Media Center v1.1.0 Release Notes
2020-06-27
Additional Information
* Project Web site: http://www.piboxproject.com/
* Binary Download: http://www.graphics-muse.org/archives/pibox/1.1.0/
* Issue Tracker: http://redmine.graphics-muse.org/projects/pibox/issues
* Wiki Site: http://www.graphics-muse.org/wiki/pmwik ... aspberryPi
** There are also system specific wikis available on the Issue Tracker.
* Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/PiBox-Embedded-Developers/
General Status
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PiBox is now broken into several builds, also known as systems. The base system is called the PiBox Development System. It forms the basis for all other builds which are created by applying a series of opkg installs on top of the base system.
There are three other systems now available: Media System, Kiosk and Auto-Kiosk. Various other systems are in still in development.
PiBox Media System is a consumer oriented distribution for distributed media playback. It supports videos, music, pictures, webcams (both on the console and via the web), and SiriusXM.
PiBox Kiosk is a video/picture browser, like a picture frame, with a touch screen interface supporting fast forward, rewind, skip forward or back and pause/play.
PiBox Auto-Kiosk is a video player that can run unattended. It's useful for playing series of videos that start immediately at boot time, without user intervention.
Most system application development is based on GTK+ and Cairo, with limited web interfaces for networking configuration and REST APIs. All systems current run hardware optimized on Raspberry Pis.
PiBox Development System is a generic build system that also allows creating custom software platforms from scratch for any
hardware, not just the Raspberry Pi. It has been used on ARM, MIPS, and X86 projects.
Highlights for this release include
* There was no publicly announced 1.0 release (I just forgot to do it) so this announcment is for the full 0.11 to 1.1 cycle. This is about 3 1/2 years of work so there are a lot of updates. Future releases should come more often, I hope.
* Everything is now licenses with the 0BSD license, making it very open source friendly.
* Binary releases to make it easier for end user installation.
* Support for Raspberry Pi Model B/B+, 2, 3 and Zero, including 3 and Zero WiFi.
* Switched to a squashfs/overlay boot system in preparation for in-field upgrades. This is now handled by an initramfs.
* Added a MusicFE player (Music Front End, using omxplayer on the backend) app with carousel-type display.
* Added a PiPics player app to view static images.
* Added a PiXM player app for use with XMPCR device.
* Added license generation from Buildroot.
* Added graphical WiFi scanner to PiBox Network Config.
* PiBox Media System and Kiosk's now support better dbus interaction allowing for cleaner interaction with touchscrens.
* Oh: and touchscreen support was integrated! This is specifically for the kiosk system but works if you install the Media System on the official 7" Raspberry Pi touchscreen.
* System boots are quieted with only the MIOT (My IoT) logo showing with a boot progress bar.
* Boot times are down to <20 seconds for RPi 2 and 3 systems.
* Improved thread handling with semaphores in multiple apps.
* Improved webcam app: faster startup, less lagtime, hi- and low-res options.
* Improved PiBox Network Config unit tests help to stabilize network management.
* Improved Cairo/GdkPixbus image scaling in all apps, such as the analog clock in PiClock and the Launcher UI in the Media System.
* Metabuild has improved support of system app builds.
* Core system bumps:
** Crosstoon-NG: 1.24.0
** Buildroot: 2019.05.1
** Busybox: busybox-1.30.1
** Linux: 4.19.106
Full changelogs available from the official announcement: http://redmine.graphics-muse.org/news/18.
Where this is headed
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There are a variety of new systems in development for the next releae cycle.
* Ironman is a home automation system with custom protocols for communicating with Android-based sensors.
* Xeon is a custom phone probject being built on custom hardware based on the PiBox Development System.
* PiSentry is a motion activated camera that will integrate with both Ironman and the Media System.
* PiDock is Docker platform for the Raspberry Pi.
* PiDock86 is a port of PiDock to X86_64 showing the ease of transition from one hardware platform to another.
* PiFile is a headless file server for the Raspberry Pi.
* In-field upgrades of any system build is planned for the next major release.
Getting involved
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PiBox is currently a one man project. I'd like to have more users of the systems and definitely would welcome new developers.
There are two ways to get started using the system.
1. Download the binary tarballs. Each tarball is for a specific hardware platform and a specific system. Inside each tarball are installation instructions.
2. Download the developer tarball, unpack it and use the _mksd.sh_ script to format your SD card. Then use the _mkinstall.sh_ script to install the distribution to the SD card. Use "-?" to get help with either script.
To get started with development, please read the developer wiki on how to build the PiBox Development System.
http://www.graphics-muse.org/wiki/pmwik ... i/Software
Contact me at mjhammel@graphics-muse.org if you're interested in helping out, have ideas for improvement, need help using any PiBox system or just want more information.