Tiny Core Linux
Tiny Core Extensions => TCE Q&A Forum => Topic started by: bkm on November 11, 2014, 06:11:06 PM
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Greetings All,
I am trying to convert a short stack of old ThinkPad 600x laptops into working tools for some of my local ham radio friends. At this point I have been hunting through the tcz listings and found a few: (are there more?)
- FlDigi
- UnixCW
- Xlog
- Gpredict
Unfortunately all of them were only in the v4.x listings. So, reluctantly I have started loading V4.7.6 TC on the laptops and setting up these programs. (the new core+ kept blowing up anyway (in another post))
So what I am really asking is "Are there more that I have not yet found?"
TC is such a tidy way to make some of these older PC's useful again if only for special purposes like being dedicated to a Ham Radio connection. It might be interesting to see a few different topic listings where folks might add to running lists of extensions for specific topics. However I would be happy to find anyone that could tell me what other extensions I might be able to use for my radio club project.
Thanks in advance for any input here. ;D
BKM - KJ4WRD
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Enter 'ham' in the TAGS field of the APPS browser.
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TAGs field !?
When I entered 'ham' in the apps browser and searched it only came up with hamlib.
I must be missing something.
BKM
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Hi bkm
Click on the Search button and you will see a drop down menu. Change to tags and try again.
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Hi
hamlib, Xastir and soundmodem is also there. I'm planning to update, rebuild them on 6.0
Are you looking for a specific program?
Bela, HA5DI
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Hi there Bela! Nice to see a Ham developer in the mix.
I need fldigi and a logging program. Anything else would only be a plus after those. Maybe an APRS configuration in the future but as a volunteer I will start with what I think I can handle first and add more later.
Not sure what sound modem does that fldigi doesn't already do. Doesn't fldigi in linux use the sound card already similar to the windows versions? Is soundmodem required for fldigi? I didn't see it in the dependencies.
Since I was making these laptops up for our local club I wanted to get as much usefulness out of them as I could. They will be hooked up to the various club radios for field day events and educational events. These laptops came with a business I bought many years ago and they were phased out in 2003. The have been idle for a long time and I thought it would be great to use them as dedicated radio PCs for our local club.
Thanks for any advice you can provide.
BKM - call sign KJ4WRD
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Hi
fldigi do not need soundmodem as all such functions are built-in. Soundmodem is for packet radio/APRS (Xastir) only.
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Bela,
Why would you already be working on a version 6? Is there something major that will be changing with the base system very soon?
Also... a big thank you to gerald_clark and Rich. I have only recently started using TC as a gui distro. I have been using micro-core since 2009 and have several hundred devices running it headless for some dedicated functions. Working through a GUI now is all new to me and I really had no idea I could alter the search. Thanks again.
BKM
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For command line, you can use 'tce-ab'.
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Bela,
Why would you already be working on a version 6? Is there something major that will be changing with the base system very soon?
Bryan
TC Dev Team was working hard on next major release, 6.0 in alst weeks. First alpha release for x86, x86_64 and armv6 (Raspberry Pi) was released few days ago, see
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,17689.0.html
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,17691.0.html
Hopefully armv7/mips will follow, thought no ETA fot them.
Updates, additions will be seen in 6.x repos as part of testing. I'm not planning to make any changes in current 4.x/5.x repos.
Béla
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Bela,
Thanks for the alert to the upcoming 6 releases. I look forward to trying them out.
Currently trying to get a 4.x system running in order to use the fldigi and the xlog packages. Unfortunately TC is having trouble with the sound chipset in the ThinkPad 600x. The alsa drivers do not recognize it. I will play with it a bit more to see if I can get it working but, if not then the laptops may go back into the closet for another few years or until I throw them out.
I was really hoping to make them useful again, but if fldigi does not see the sound system then it can't really do anything. I am trying to figure out how to delete the alsa drivers now and maybe substitute the OSS drivers in hopes of getting something working.
Again, all this user interface stuff is new to me. With my micro-core stuff I just "apt get" my python package, load my scripts, everything works! Figuring out how to remove drivers has me scratching my head, but with enough reading and trial and error attempts I think I can get it. I never had to worry about sound before.
Having fun with all this though. Thanks again for your help.
BKM
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sound: Does it work with other distros? If yes, we can find a solution on TC for sure. There are also cheap, few bucks USB sound 'cards'. Most cases they have only mono input but it is good for fldigi, sstv, etc. except I/Q SDR receivers. I'm using one with a Raspberry Pi and just works fine.
Regarding reuse of old staff there are cases where simply better to throw them away and use a small SBC like Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone Black but there are many others. We are running for example at HA5HRK two WEB SDR systems, one is RPI other is BBB with FunCube Dongle Pro+. They took cca. 5W only, no HD, no coolers, no noise. Just doing the job.
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The sound worked in Lubuntu, but the whole Lubuntu distro was a resource hog and I had to jump to TC.
I have a box of RPi units here with the ethernet port. I use them as headless appliances for other fun stuff. I have never tried to use them with a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. In fact I never tried them with TC either. I use the micro core in miniature x86 devices but not with the RPi. I guess they would work but then I would have to get a bunch of screens and other human interface goodies to make them useful for this project. The laptops already have all that fun stuff and don't cost me anything to re-allocate to the ham project.
Now that you mention it... I think I have a few of those sound dongles around here somewhere. I will have to try that. It may save me a bunch of time. That beats trying to figure out how to remove/replace the alsa drivers.
Thanks again,
BKM
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These cheap USB sound dongles work without any driver installation, configuration, etc. What you need just alsa.tcz everything else is done by the system.
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Hmm... I plugged one of those cheap sound dongles in and tried it. Nothing happened. I then downloaded alsa.tcz to load on boot and rebooted. Still nothing with either the internal sound system or the USB sound. I know the usb sound works. I took it off my Windows box to use it here.
When I open the config area of fldigi it automatically checks the File I/O box only and does not recognize and sound devices. It also appears that OSS drivers are needed for fldig. At lease they are given a check box in the config page. But when I tried to load them I got a message that they conflict with the already loaded drivers.
So I guess I still have to figure out how to dump the alsa drivers so the OSS ones can work.... Maybe?!
I din't know. I will have to play with it more when I get back to the desk ina few hours.
Thanks again.
Id there a different area of the forum we should take this part of the conversation?
BKM
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Keep discussion here. Later we can split, move, etc. if needed.
I would say forget OSS, solve it with ALSA. Install usb-tils.tcz and run lsusb to see whether the USB sound device is available as an USB device. Also check dmesg (expecting it is plugged in when booted) and look for USB and sound related messages at the end.
If it is recognized, check sound cards recogtnized by Alsa with cat /proc/asound/cards to see is it there or not. List of loaded kernel modules (lsmod) may help too.
Lets see these to decide how to proceed.
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Ok. Just got back from my meetings for the day. Thanks for the clue to the direction to take with this. I will get right on it and let you know what I find.
I have always been rebooting between attempts to make sure everything is loaded fresh each time. That's the beauty of TC. I gives you a fresh setup every boot. I left the sound dongle in each time so I will continue to do so and see what shows up in the cards file.
Thanks again.
BKM
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...Regarding reuse of old staff there are cases where simply better to throw them away...
Sounds like the human resources department! ;)
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Funny Lee.... ;) Sometimes they do think of "staff" as "stuff" that is disposable. That is why I got out of the corporate world and started my own adventure a long time ago. Even funnier, I quit back then with only 1 hour notice and in the next hour bought a division of the same company. The folks at HR were confused on how I did that for several weeks. Now I have one of their divisions they wanted to close down and have made it something they actually wanted to buy back last year.
Funny how things work out sometimes.
BKM
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...Regarding reuse of old staff there are cases where simply better to throw them away...
Sounds like the human resources department! ;)
Right... :)
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Bela,
Ok, the lsusb reports that it found the USB sound dongle:
.Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1b6d:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
.Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0d8c:013c C-Media Electronics, Inc. CM108 Audio Controller
This tells me the system can detect the USB sound card. So now to see what the ALSA module thinks...
So, here is the response to the 'cat /proc/asound/cards' command:
. 0 [CS46xx ]: CS46xx - Sound Fusion CS4xx
Sound Fusion CS4xx at 0x50100000/0x50000000, irq 11
. 1 [Device ]: USB-Audio - USB PnP Sound Device
C-Media Electronics Inc USB PnP Sound Device at usb-0000:00:07.2-1, full speed
Now this tells me that both the internal sound system shipset and the USB sound dongle are recongized by the system and should be available to the FlDigi program. Yet, when I run FlDigi and look in the configuration screen, there is no audio device listed. It contunues to automatically check the box for "File I/O Only".
Is there a step I missed to get the audio resources into the system as available? From what I can see here both of the audio cards should be available for use. I am just not sure what ALSA needs to make that happen.
BKM
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Did you install alsa-config and run ( as root) "/usr/local/etc/init.d/alsasound start" ?
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Ummm.... nope. I thought that would run on boot. Let me try it and see what happens.
Be right back...
BKM
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Hmm... I used the "alsasound start" command and it came back with:
.Starting sound driver: snd-cs46xx
So it appears to have started a non-running sound driver for my internal sound card chipset (of all things). Now when I fire up FlDigi and go to the configuration settings, the "File I/O only box" is still checked, but there is now a device listed in the OSS device box as "/dev/dsp"
I am assuming that If I now check the OSS box it uses the snd-cs46xx driver?! Since there had never been anything populated in this box before, it seems logical that this is the case.
However when I reboot the system and check FlDigi again the "/dev/dsp" is missing until I go run the alsasound start command again. Soooooo.... how do I get the alsa sound driver to start autoMAGICally when the system boots?
I can't have a bunch of whiny windoz teenage ham students trying to start a sound driver from root each time they start their session. Heck, it's bad enough that I have to figure out FlDigi for the first time. I had always been using simple HRDelux on my personal system and this is a little different (but much more satisfying ::) )
Gerald - thanks for giving the clueless a clue!
BKM
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Add it to /opt/bootlocal.sh and do a backup. You really need to read the book.
http://tinycorelinux.net/book.html
Also, when you install a program , read the info file. It will have important notes and instructions.
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Yup... I downloaded "the book" and will dig deeper tonight as I relax.
I did get the soundcard to start on boot with editing the bootlocal.sh
At this point is looks like everything I need to be working will work. So, now I just want to wipe the hard drive and start a fresh frugal install again so that I only have the items loaded that I need loaded. I think I have a very good list of how to get there now and what order to get them done for everything to boot correctly.
The only problem I have is the live cd will not let me install on the hard drive until I unmount it, and everything I have tried to get it unmounted has not worked. Even though I booted from the cd it still mounts the HD and I can't seem to get it unmounted.
Can you give me one more clue tonight?
BKM
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The only problem I have is the live cd will not let me install on the hard drive until I unmount it, and everything I have tried to get it unmounted has not worked. Even though I booted from the cd it still mounts the HD and I can't seem to get it unmounted.
Can you give me one more clue tonight?
If your tce directory is on the hard drive, it will not let you umount it because of the mounted extensions.
Does /etc/sysconfig/tcedir point to a directory on the HD?
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If you boot with 'base norestore' it should not mount anything. Then you should be able to clean the hard disk and start over.
You should not need to do this though.
The APPS->Maintenance->Dependencies And Deletions will allow you to remove no longer needed extensions.
It will also automatically remove any dependencies that are not needed by any other extension.
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Booted with "base norestore" and got it to do a fresh install. Thanks gentlemen.
I will now retire to reading the core book and go through the setup of the 2 packages I want running later tonight. Once I have that done I will use that process to setup up the remaining 6 laptops. I guess I will then be spending the weekend making up the custom cables/interfaces to connect the laptops to the radios.
Thanks to all that offered clues. I think I can get it to do what I want for now. I will refine my process this time and then maybe do it all over again when a stable release of version 6 is ready.
It has been fun. TC through the user interface feels strange after doing so much work in the past on microcore without it.
BKM
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You don't need to do manual install steps for each laptop. Once you have one setup, you can just clone the HD, should save you some time.
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Thanks, but I think the practice is good anyway and I think it is probably a good idea to exercise the CD drives and the network ports while doing the install so we know they all work. I will have to generate a sound test to make sure those ports are working as well. I don't want to take a chance of missing a potential problem and having some student get left out on their first digital modes lesson. If anything, this exercise has made me hyper aware of the potential for things to go awry.
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There is already "speaker-test" program.
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Is that part of one of the packages? I didn't see is as a TCZ file in the repo and it didn't show up when I did a search in TAGS for "speaker".
Where do I find this speaker test program?
BKM
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Hi bkm
It's part of alsa.tcz. That's why you need to read the info file for extensions, it's mention in there.
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Ok thanks. I printed out the first 3 chapters of the book last night and read them until I was bleary eyed. Will re-skim them tonight and read then next few chapters, then repeat. After at least one read through I should at least have some idea of where to find specific information quickly and further re-reads should eventually make me a little less likeley to make dumb mistakes. I should probably print out all the info files for my packages as well. I know they can be read on screen, but I guess I'm a bit old school when it comes to reading reference material.
BKM