Raspberry Pi - Day 2, 3 and 4

I spent Day 2 about 350 miles away from my RPi, having to go to a convention for my day job. Days 3 and 4 were wrapped around trying to get the Debian kernel to find the uvcvideo module. On a whim, I went ahead and tried the ArchLinux build and low and behold, uvcvideo was cooked in. I moved my scripts over from the Sheevaplug that I was prototyping on and got to work.

Things that I have installed that worked without issue:

* motion - gets 6 GPS with movement processing
* uvcvideo - Mounted my 4 USB cameras without an issue
* MySQL
* git
* opencv
* python2

Things that partially worked:
* audio - The mp3 player I was using, mplayer, is panicking the kernel due to issues with the kernel that are in process of being resolved. TBE worked much better, but has a weird problem that the process hangs for a few seconds after the stream ends.

Raspberry Pi - Day 1

After a long wait, a quick rush to order at 1 AM, and another slightly shorter but long wait, my first Raspberry Pi showed up on my doorstep. I have been prototyping a system to basically create a home sentry system (aka Turret from Portal 2).

Up until this point, I have been using a SheevaPlug with a USB soundcard, a USB camera, and an Arduio with a Motor control shield. I ran the ARM version of Debian, which the RPi has a release already created as well. On top of that, I use the OpenCV library in a Python script to handle the webcamera feed and detect movement. If no movement occurs after a long time, the bot starts talking to itself. When it detects movement, it  plays sounds from the "Detect Movement" bank and runs the motor to open the arm sockets. When it detects noise, it plays sounds from the "Detect Noise" bank. After a interval, if noise or movement stops, it goes back into a Caution state and plays caution sounds for a while and retracts the arms, then goes back into a sleep state. I did a quick prototype prior to digging into OpenCV using a great app called "motion".

A rather simple project, but one that involves computer vision, motor control, audio files, and is possible to do extremely inexpensively, especially due to the RPi being $40.

Code will be posted when I get to at least an Alpha state of the project.

Tonight, I was able to load my SD-card with the Debian install, expand it out to the full size using a GParted Live disk in a VirtualBox window on my Windows 7 PC, and accessed the RPi via SSH. I then loaded motion, opencv and python-opencv. Python is already installed. It looks like the uvcvideo module is not installed and I am having problems grabbing the kernel sources to import it myself.

So, I guess this puts an end of my first day of this.

Pogoplug+: From Out of the Box to Media Grabbing and Slinging Machine

This guide will walk you through modding a Pogoplug to handle grabbing media from Usenet to serve out to the rest of your home network.

We will be installing:

• ArchLinux|ARM for the Operating System. (The current V3/Classic/Pro kernel is 2.6.31.6_SMP_820.)
• Sickbeard and Couchpotato will be used to grab media through Sabnzbd.
• Samba to serve files to your Windows PCs and Media Boxes

Other things you can install:

• NGINX to wrangle all the ports into easy to remember urls and accessibility from the Internet
• MiniDLNA or MediaTomb to transcode to devices like the PS3

I used a Pogo-B01 (aka Classic) on 4/4/2012, changes to the OS or Apps used may change after this date and require different instructions. The packages involved should be available for your Pogoplug. The only major difference being the initial loading of ArchLinux|ARM. Also, this fits a few of my personal tastes in setup

What you need:

• Pogoplug (Try to get a V3/Classic/Pro - http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv6/pogoplug-provideov3)
• USB Memory Stick - For the OS and Apps - minimum 2 GB
• USB Hard Drive - For storing videos

• An SSH terminal client (Windows: Putty - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/)

Only have your OS drive plugged in until later. This way, you won't accidentally wipe out anything you give a care about.

Steps:
1. Set up ArchLinux|Arm on the system per your particular Pogoplug’s revision http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms

• For the V3/Classic/Pro: At the step 14, before running depmod, you may need to set up the modules.builtin file first:
  cd /lib/modules/2.6.31.6_SMP_820 && find . | grep ko | cut -f 2,3 -d \. | cut -f 2- -d \/ > modules.builtin
• For the V3/Classic/Pro: At the step 16, where the instructions say to update packages using pacman, it will ask to update pacman first, tell it NO! Also, if it asks you to remove udev-oxnas for udev, tell it NO! It will only ask if you try to update pacman first before updating everything else. Replacing udev-oxnas will udev will cause your plug to no longer boot. If you somehow have still went ahead and did that, see the “Help! It stopped working!” part at the bottom of the http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms page for your box to start recovery of the OS.

27% of diskspace on a 2 GB memory stick already eaten up

2. Create a swapfile:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile.img bs=1M count=512

mkswap /swapfile.img

swapon /swapfile.img

echo "/swapfile.img   none   swap   sw   0   0" >> /etc/fstab

We may be able to get away with 256, but I want to play it safe when this thing will be doing large unrar operations.

3. Install SABnzbd:
pacman -Sy sabnzbd

4. Configure SABnzbd to listen for remote machines and require a login:
nano /etc/conf.d/sabnzbd

Change the below line, replacing 127.0.0.1 with your boxes IP address:
SABNZBD_IP="127.0.0.1"
Example:
SABNZBD_IP=”192.168.1.107”

Change the below, adding in a login name and password with a colon separating the name and password and an @ after the password:

SABNZBD_USPW=""

Example:
SABNZBD_USPW=”john:password@”

Press Control-
5. Start SABnzbd:

rc.d start sabnzbd

6. Log in to SABnzbd to make sure it works.
http://192.168.1.107:8081

Don’t load any files just yet or you will run yourself out of diskspace quick.

7. Get yaourt to install other apps:

pacman -S yaourt

8. Install Sickbeard:
yaourt -AS sickbeard

Respond No to “Edit PKGBUILD?”
Respond No to “Edit Sickbeard.Install?”
Respond Yes to “Continue Install?”
Respond Yes to “Install Sickbeard?”
Respond Yes one more time for the “Proceed with Installation?”

9. Let’s fix a very out-of-date sickbeard:
cd /usr/lib
mv sickbeard sickbeard-bak
wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/midgetspy/Sick-Beard/tarball/master
tar -zxvf master
mv midgetspy-Sick-Beard-xxxxxx my-sickbeard-install
chown -R sickbeard:sickbeard sickbeard
rm -rf sickbeard-bak

The xxxxxx will be something like acaf5ca, just look at the output from the “tar” command.

10. Start up SABnzbd.
rc.d start sickbeard

11. Log in to SABnzbd to make sure it works and click the “Update” button at the top.
http://192.168.1.107:8080

Don’t load any shows just yet or you will run yourself out of diskspace quick.

12. Install CouchPotato:

pacman -S couchpotato-git

13. Start up CouchPotato.
rc.d start couchpotato

14. Log in to CouchPotato:
http://192.168.1.107:5000

Don’t load any movies just yet or you will run yourself out of diskspace quick.

15. Install Samba using this guide: http://archlinuxarm.org/support/guides/applications/samba


16. Run “df”. You should now be setting at around 77% of a 2 GB drive used. This is why I wanted to make sure you weren’t using up drivespace with downloads. We need to set each tool to use a different drive than your USB stick for their storage needs.

17. Plug in your USB hard drive now. If you had done the udev-automount from the ArchLinux|ARM instructions in step one and your drive was already formatted in Windows using the FAT32 or NTFS file systems, it should have just mounted on your Pogoplug.  If you need to format it or want to format it in a Linux format like EXT3, do this now. I figure many of us have a drive already formatted in Windows and would like to be able to take it other places. If you do, format FAT32.

17. Run “df” again. You should now see /dev/sdb1 mounted on /media/hd-sdb1.

18. First, let’s make a good spot for SABnzbd to dump stuff and link it to the default location. This will protect you from a problem with your OS drive overfilling if your storage drive goes AWOL.

mkdir /media/hd-sdb1/sabnzbd
rm -rf /opt/sabnzbd/Downloads/

ln -s /media/hd-sdb1/sabnzbd /opt/sabnzbd/Downloads

rm -rf /opt/sabnzbd/logs

ln -s /media/hd-sdb1/sabnzbd /opt/sabnzbd/logs

19. Feel free to change the log location for sickbeard to the storage drive as well. You can do it at:
http://192.168.1.107:8081/config/general/

20. You are ready to rock and roll. Configuring your Apps is dependant on the services you use. There are wonderful guides for these tasks at:
http://www.ainer.org/

Saigumi.net is back!

The second domain name that I ever bought, years upon years ago, called saigumi.net expired. I had used it to host tutorials for whatever programming language or tool I was using at the time, post information that people now use things like Google+ or Twitter for, and just generally made it a place of my own.

Then, one day, I just decided that there really was no reason for me to try to be anonymous on the Internet, so I registered goewert.org (as one of my distant relatives got the .com) and have been using it for more personal things.

The domain was snatched up by a squatter due to it having a Google pagerank of 4. I patiently waited for years. In the meantime, I bought the .com of the same name, but never really got it back to what it all was about. Last month, the squatter finally abandoned the site and I was able to reregister it. 

In the next coming months, I hope to correct all the links to the content that was there that I still get messages about as well as add new content, mostly focusing on software build and process automation, XNA, XBLIG, game development, and other tech and software interests.  

Cosmic Epic - Space Exploration for XBox360 and Windows PC

While Level Up! is kind of stuck in a bit of null space in the review process, I started working on my next game. I was hoping to use sales from LU! to help fund this one, but I just don't know how many sales on XBLive I will get because of its obscure nature.

My next game is tenatively called Cosmic Epic. It is a space exploration game that has little hand holding. This game focuses more on relations with alien races, resource management, trading and searching rather than combat. Yes, there will be combat, but more from a captain's or admiral's point of view rather than fast paced button pounding.

Here it is with a mix of art created by me or borrowed as a placeholder.

XBLIG Review for Level Up! and Indie Games General

I put LU! into review last week and a few defects were found. I did some patching and cleaned up a few other areas that I now realize weren't that greatly coded. Another round of playtesting will begin today with another review after that.

Several people have pointed out that it isn't very interactive and "not a game". The interactivity portion is true, however the "not a game" isn't. The root of what makes a game is that there is some sort of competition. I agree that this definition allows games like "Press this button and hold it down as long as you can" to exist, but in the case of LU!, there is avenues of fun to be had. It's foremost 'competition' is basically seeing how long you will let it run. That is it. You can compete with your highscores as well. Past that, like Progess Quest, any other forms of competition are based on your own imagination.

I know that most gamers today are trigger finger twitchers, but this game does have its place. I added a tutorial the first time the game is played (and if you decide to turn it back on) to explain the game in full so as not to be deceptive about what exactly the game is at all, though, I know I am bound to receive some hate mail about it.

People are so finicky when it comes to spending $1. I have seen people blow $60 on a hastily released FPS, play for 20 minutes and uninstall because it is crap and not level the same amount of vitriol at those developers than I have seen on forums of XBLIG developed games. It confuses me as unlike the $60 FPS games out there, all XBLIG games have demos. You can actually try before you buy to find out if you like the game or if there are some problems with gameplay that irritate you or to figure out if you even like it. Guess what... you can even buy 60 of them for the same price as some FPS from a company that urinates on their developers to have them crank out Sequel Shooter 5: Herp of Derpers. Think about it this way, you could even blindly buy 60 of them and if even 1 give you 4 hours of enjoyment, you WIN! (4 hours comes from the average amount of time a person will play a AAA title released game.)

Anyhow, get out there, support the games you like regardless of who makes them. If you like Herp of Derpers, buy Herp of Derpers. But just go out and explore and try new things, you may find something wonderful that you enjoy.

7th inning stretch for Level Up!

I just finishing closing or deferring the last few items in Level Up!'s project plan.

Over the last week, I focused on finishing up the art and buckled down to finish the last few features.

There were finally some replies to my search for artists. Matt Brooker created a cover for me.

So, I have started posting links to the game on sites that I frequent to get some last minute eyeballs looking at it. I'm sure someone is going to say "But, I don't do anything but create a character and the game just plays itself.

Download the game at: http://goo.gl/02bNC

Screenshots here: http://johncgoewert.imgur.com/level_up#e9yQ7