[Commotion-dev] RPi & Commotion

[Dan Staples]

We definitely plan on packaging for Debian :)  Thanks for offering your 
support! We will likely do it in the upcoming couple months, or it may 
be part of an intern project of packaging the desktop Commotion 
components: https://commotionwireless.net/jobs/opw-projects. I'm sure 
we'll have a more concrete plan after our discussions in the DC office 
over the next couple days. See you tomorrow!

On Wed 24 Apr 2013 05:36:53 PM EDT, Hans of Guardian wrote:
>
> On Apr 23, 2013, at 10:02 AM, Dan Staples wrote:
>
>>
>> On 04/22/2013 02:05 PM, The Doctor wrote:
>>> On 04/22/2013 09:47 AM, Dan Staples wrote:
>>>
>>> > OLSR to allow them to mesh multi-hop. I also had them running from
>>> > battery packs I got from Radio Shack :)
>>>
>>> What kind of battery packs were you using for them?  What's their
>>> discharge profile look like?
>>>
>>
>> Not sure what the discharge profile is, I just grabbed the largest
>> capacity USB battery packs I found. It's basically one of those
>> "Charge your iPhone on the go!" type of battery packs. I'm currently
>> working on using D cells to power the RPi, but the cheap step-up
>> converter I'm using doesn't provide a clean enough 5V...
>>> > a custom Commotion Raspbian image that you can put on an SD card
>>> > and boot your RPi from.
>>>
>>> A few things about building on top of Raspbian:
>>>
>>> Raspbian/Wheezy is remarkably stable at this point in time.  Keep in
>>> mind that even if you have the experimental repository turned on,
>>> everything available will still be a couple of releases behind.  If
>>> something goes wonky, you might want to look into a custom compile of
>>> the package with a newer checkout.
>>>
>>> Make Debian packages for your code and build a repository for them.
>>> You won't be sorry.
>>>
>>> AIDE and Blueprint are good for keeping track of the Debian-level
>>> config files that you'll have to modify to make everything work
>>> smoothly.  You'll have to reconfigure more than it seems at first
>>> scratch.
>>>
>>> For what it's worth, we used the packaged version of olsrd in the
>>> Wheezy repository (0.6.2-2.1) with the version we built for Byzantium
>>> v0.3a (v0.6.4) and encountered no compatibility problems.  Your
>>> olsrd.conf file Just Worked(tm) with it. :)
>>>
>>> To free up compute cycles, turn off the X desktop.  You won't be sorry.
>>>
>>
>> We have plans to package Commotion components for Debian and a PPA
>> for Ubuntu. I currently have a custom Raspbian image for my MediaGrid
>> project, which I made by mounting and chrooting into a Raspbian
>> image, and then installing/removing components and adding
>> configurations and boot scripts. But yes, Debian packages would be
>> ideal. There's plenty of things like X and Pulse audio that can be
>> removed.
>
> Definitely make Debian packages!  I can help here, and I'm a DD so I
> can upload them into the official repositories!  Then they
> automatically will go into all of Debian, Raspbian, Ubuntu, Mint,
> Knoppix, etc.  Let's figure out a workflow for getting these packaged
> up and into Debian.  Its more work up front, but it saves a ton of
> work in the long run.
>
> I think that http://mentors.debian.net/ provides a nice interface for
> me to review packages that are maintained outside of the Debian
> infrastructure.  But I'm also happy to set up git repos for the
> packages in Debian's collab-maint.  Anyone can create an account and
> get commit perms.  I've recently switched to a really nice git
> workflow for the Debian packaging that makes the packaging based on
> both the upstream git and the upstream release tarballs.
>
> .hc
>
>
>
>
>>
>>> > As for wifi cards, I recommend any USB cards that use the
>>> > ath9k_htc driver. My top choices for cards are:
>>>
>>> These are what we got to work when we ported Byzantium to the RasPi:
>>>
>>> https://github.com/Byzantium/ByzPi/wiki/ByzPi---Byzantium-on-Raspberry-Pi-Network-Hardware-Information
>>
>> Useful list. Did they all work okay? Even the high powered ones?
>>
>>>
>>> > I have only tested #1 with the RPi. I am worried about #4 working
>>> > with the RPi, in terms of its power consumption. But in general,
>>> > the
>>>
>>> If the power consumption of a wireless interface gives you problems,
>>> plug it into a powered USB hub.  We have a couple of setups in which
>>> the RasPi and wireless device are plugged into (and thus powered by)
>>> such a thing, and it makes for a neat development package.
>>>
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Commotion-dev mailing list
>> > Commotion-dev at lists.chambana.net
>> > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-dev
>>
>> --
>> Dan Staples
>>
>> Open Technology Institute
>> https://commotionwireless.net
>>
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>

--
Dan Staples

Open Technology Institute
https://commotionwireless.net