The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

  • My badges

  • Twitter Updates

  • My Flickr Stream

  • Pages

  • All categories

  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 1,854 other subscribers

Archive for the ‘Hardware Development’ Category

Hmm, latest Tumbleweed on Raspberry Pi 3 has an odd thing booting: Ansi termi…

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/05/25

Reminder to self: since the [ArchiveARM Cortex A53 problems are fixed, check out if this is also fixed:

[WayBack] Hmm, latest Tumbleweed on Raspberry Pi 3 has an odd thing booting: Ansi terminal characters aren’t being processed any more. – Jeroen Wiert Pluimers – Google+

Related: Git repository with fixed binaries for Tumbleweed on Raspberry Pi 3 – Bug 1084419 – Glibc update to 2.27 causes segfault during name resolution

–jeroen

Related as a different Pi died after a sudden power down:

Posted in *nix, Development, Hardware Development, Linux, openSuSE, Power User, Raspberry Pi, SuSE Linux, Tumbleweed | Leave a Comment »

Electronics components and resistor decoder colours

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/05/17

Cool video about basic electronic components explained:

It goes well with these posts:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, Hardware Development | Leave a Comment »

Ubuntu: Fixing the myserious “Failed to stop apt-daily.timer: Connection timed out”

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/05/14

Ubuntu is the only Linux system I had that – after installing a text-mode console setup – gets itself in the below state with only running apt update and apt-get upgrade.

Preparing to unpack .../archives/apt_1.2.19_armhf.deb ...
Failed to stop apt-daily.timer: Connection timed out
See system logs and 'systemctl status apt-daily.timer' for details.
Failed to get load state of apt-daily.timer: Connection timed out
dpkg: warning: subprocess old pre-removal script returned error exit status 1

I could not find meaningful search results for the above thing, nor did systemctl status apt-daily.timer return anything better than

Failed to get properties: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out

Heck, it doesn’t even reboot any more (no helpful search results either):

# reboot
Failed to start reboot.target: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out
See system logs and 'systemctl status reboot.target' for details.
Failed to open /dev/initctl: No such device or address
Failed to talk to init daemon.

Nor did systemctl status reboot.target return anything better than

Failed to get properties: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out

From the ubuntu-16.04-minimal-odroid-c1-20160817.img.xz base system, it only had these extra packages installed:

  • etckeeper
  • tmux
  • speedtest-cli
  • sendemail

Workaround found, but still unsure why this happened in the first place

Despite the workaround below, I still don’t know why I got into this situation and this leaves me with a very uncomfortable feeling.

Too bad some systems (like ODroid) only have Ubuntu based distributions as sorting out stuff like above took me way too much effort.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in *nix, Development, etckeeper, Hardware Development, Internet, Linux, Odroid, Power User, SpeedTest, Ubuntu | 2 Comments »

Some Raspberry Ideas via Tweakers.net

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/05/11

via: [WayBackRaspberry Pi Zero W met wifi en bluetooth kost 10 dollar – Computer – Nieuws – Tweakers

  • LibreELEC (media player OS for Kodi); if your PC is recent enough and supports CEC, you can even use the remote control of your TV to controle the KODI user interface
  • EmulationStation; play old NES/SNES/PS1/etc games on your TV
  • Pi Hole, alternative DNS server that blocks ads even on devices that do not support an ad blocker
  • Domoticz to support device and protocols like Klik-aan-klik-uit, Z-Wave, HVAC, thermostats, smart electricity meters, and make your home “smart”
  • Build Robotjes and control with your smartphone
  • Install Rasbian and replace simple desktop machine usage
  • Sick Beard
  • Sonarr
  • SABnzbd+
  • Couch Potato
  • Retropie
  • http://makezine.com/proje…ode-raspberry-pi-cluster/

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, Debian, Development, Hardware Development, Linux, Power User, Raspberry Pi, Raspbian | Leave a Comment »

CLIFF Electronic Components – Quicktest; Resistance wheel

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/04/11

[WayBackCLIFF Electronic Components – Quicktest:

The Quicktest is ideal for electrical shops, factories, labs and service departments.

With its lid open the wires of a plugless lead can be inserted into the insulated clips. When the lid is closed, current passes to the equipment being demonstrated or tested.

A neon light shows that the connector is live and ready to use. The fuse (BS 1362) is easily accessible for replacement.

The connector is made of tough, safe materials. The base is phenolic moulded for insulation and rigidity. The lid is flame retardant glass filled thermo plastic.

The insulated clips are colour coded for easy identification. The flexible cable grip will take any normal mains cable. Only one small screwdriver is needed for both the base entry and the terminal screws.

Another handy tool is this: [WayBackResistance Wheel | Jaycar Electronics, but it’s hard to get so you can build similar devices yourself with a few hours of work:

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, Hardware Development, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Is a raspberry pi 1 good enough for a pihole server? : pihole

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/04/10

Many people use it that way. Which means I can put it on an old Raspberry Pi B+ revision 1.2 board (which Wikipedia indicates as the B 1+ in the Specifications table but as Raspberry Pi 1 Model B+ revision 1.2 in the schematics of connectors).

I might consider DietPi as distribution (which is Debian based) as it is even ligher.

See [WayBackhttps://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/6h39zr/is_a_raspberry_pi_1_good_enough_for_a_pihole/#divw0i5

One more note: I need to check out which Debian base name (which indicates the version) works best as there seemed to be a dnsmasq issue (not archived because discourse hatesdislikes the WayBack machine and Archive.is):

Like Apple, Android and Delphi, they use name based versions of which I always forget the order of. Luckily the source of the below table gets updated over time [2017 Archive.is2018 Archive.is] Debian releases and names – Electric Toolbox Debian releases are named after characters from Toy Story and are frequently referred to with the name rather than the version.:

Version Code name Release date Toy Story character
1.1 Buzz 1996-06-17 Buzz Lightyear
1.2 Rex 1996-12-12 Rex (the T-Rex)
1.3 Bo 1997-06-05 Bo Peep
2.0 Hamm 1998-07-24 Hamm (the pig)
2.1 Slink 1999-03-09 Slinky Dog
2.2 Potato 2000-08-15 Mr Potato Head
3.0 Woody 2002-07-19 Woody the cowboy
3.1 Sarge 2005-06-06 Sarge from the Bucket O’ Soldiers
4.0 Etch 2007-04-08 Etch, the Etch-A-Sketch
5.0 Lenny 2009-02-14 Lenny, the binoculars
6.0 Squeeze 2011-02-06 Squeeze toy aliens
7 Wheezy 2013-05-04 Wheezy the penguin
8 Jessie 2015-04-26 Jessie the cowgirl
9 Stretch 2017-06-17 Rubber octopus from Toy Story 3
10 Buster not yet released Andy’s pet dog
11 Bullseye Not yet released Woody’s horse
Sid “unstable” The next door neighbour

Via: [WayBack] Software-update: Pi-hole 3.3.1 – IT Pro – Downloads – Tweakers

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, Debian, Development, Hardware Development, Linux, Power User, Raspberry Pi, Raspbian | 1 Comment »

Git repository with fixed binaries for Tumbleweed on Raspberry Pi 3 – Bug 1084419 – Glibc update to 2.27 causes segfault during name resolution

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/04/08

OSC downloads for [archive.is] https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1084812

The binaries provided by Stefan Brüns, together with installation instructions are now in a git repository at [WayBack] wiert.me/public/linux/opensuse/tumbleweed/aarch64 a.k.a. arm64/1084182-fix-osc-binaries · GitLab.

Follow the steps in Applying the fixes on a broken system to at least temporarily get your system to work (a new zypper dist-upgrade might fail, so be careful with that).

The cause was some ARM A53 errata handling:

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Development, DVCS - Distributed Version Control, git, Hardware Development, Linux, openSuSE, Power User, Raspberry Pi, Source Code Management, SuSE Linux, Tumbleweed | Leave a Comment »

Tumbleweed on Raspberry Pi 3 – Bug 1084419 – Glibc update to 2.27 causes segfault during name resolution

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/03/15

Need to watch these:

A few notes:

  • It is inside the glibc name resolution
  • IPv6 is OK, IPv4 fails.
  • ping/nslookup (which do not depend on glibc) are OK
  • there is an intermediate fix requiring direct osc downloads

A simple test case

Failing situation

$ curl --silent --show-error http://example.org > /dev/null
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Succeeding situation

$ curl --silent --show-error http://example.org > /dev/null

Non related, but in hindsight my own stupid fault during a similar update: a post mortem

Most important bits of my external infrastructure - page 1

Most important bits of my external infrastructure – page 1

I thought I had forgot about the SuSEfirewall2 changes (On my research list: migrate from OpenSuSE SuSEfirewall2 to firewalld) so assumed that was the reason I broke one of my secondaries (which runs on a Raspberry Pi 2):

Mistakes like these are the reason to have secondaries in the first place https://infrastatus.wiert.me and do port-mortems.

Which is kind of odd, as the SuSEfirewall2 didn’t throw any warnings like at this similar one:

This one still works because it is on the firewall in front of the Raspberry Pi 2:

(Screenshots of the above URLs are below).

In fact it was another mistake: I had forgotten to make the DHCP lease static, which resulted in a wrong IP address to be assigned upon reboot, instantly making the firewall rules invalid:

I could have fixed this remotely when I had thought about this.

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in *nix, Development, Hardware Development, Linux, openSuSE, Power User, Raspberry Pi, SuSE Linux, Tumbleweed | 3 Comments »

Koushik Dutta (Koush) – Google+Hackintosh Guide: GA-X99P-SLI | Intel 6950X | GTX 980ti

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/03/05

If I ever want to create a GPU grade or server grade Mac system: [WayBackHackintosh Guide: GA-X99P-SLI | Intel 6950X | GTX 980ti New Hackintosh is complete. If you want to recreate my setup, here’s the guide I wrote up.… – Koushik Dutta (Koush) – Google+

It’s nicely wrapped up: koush/EFI-X99: Hackintosh Guide: Gigabyte X99P-SLI, Intel 6950X, GeForce GTX 980ti

(Apple still sells Mac OS X Server, but no server grade hardware any more)

Note there are others having an X99 hackintosh.

More details:

–jeroen

Posted in Apple, Development, Hardware Development, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, macOS 10.12 Sierra, Power User | 1 Comment »

Some links on getting a Remeha Avanta 35c connected to LoT

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/03/01

I like LAN of Things over Internet of Things, so I want to connect my Remeha Avanta 35c heater to something that has ethernet.

For Windows, there is Remeha ReCom software:

It connects via an (expensive) “USB” cable which basically is a USB to serial TTL converter:

Note that Avanta/Calenta/Tzerra heaters are all very similar, especially on the communication side.

For their differences, see [WayBackVeelgestelde vragen – Remeha

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Hardware Development | Leave a Comment »