Femtofox - Tiny, low power Linux node!

[nova frost]

Backup
meshtastic --host localhost --export-config > /home/femto/nodeConfig.yaml && sudo rsync -a --info=progress2 --exclude="lost+found" --exclude=".cache" /home/femto/ /mnt/usb/femto/

Restore

sudo rsync -a --info=progress2 --exclude="lost+found" /mnt/usb/femto/ /home/femto/ && meshtastic --host localhost --config /home/femto/nodeConfig.yaml

Twas @lavish sorrel

[lavish sorrel]

PR is still sitting there lol

[forest current]

I could reinvent the wheel

Orrrr

[nova frost]

Oh, yeah

[forest current]

@mild hare

[lavish sorrel]

But to @nova frost's point It probably needs updating

[forest current]

Pull it like a lawnmower

[nova frost]

Nah, no point if it's borken

[forest current]

Hmm what changed do you think? Its just piping the export from meshtasticd

[nova frost]

By new un-mad non-su Meshtastic

[lavish sorrel]

honestly, my script was primarily for the home directory and dotfiles. Didn't care much about vfs or whatnot

[nova frost]

Yeah, I see that

[lavish sorrel]

Im biased, i have auto-cleanup set to 3 days in the app, and i purge my nodedb more often than i change my bedsheets.

[nova frost]

Embrace the chaos!

[lavish sorrel]

"new nodedb, who dis?"

[nova frost]

I think Noon's point was that it needs to be integrated somehow into the SFC system

[winter eagle]

Anybody have a procedure or advice for upgrading meshtatsticd version in Foxbuntu? Tried just following the Ubuntu instructions and my radio stopped working. Reason for the upfgrade is I can't get UDP broadcast on localhost to work using the 1.0.0 Foxbuntu firmware so wanted to check if anything has changed in a newer build of meshtasticd.

[lavish sorrel]

did you have everything in your /etc/meshtasticd/config.yaml?

[nova frost]

Yes, type in sfc to open the config menu, then use the upgrade option in the menu.
Disclaimer: this may not fix your problem.

[forest current]

PR submitted

[nova frost]

Ok, but does it work?

[forest current]

Somebody should test it (Im not able to right now) but yes, its pretty simple and straightforward

[winter eagle]

No my configs were in config.d and seem to be un-touched.

[winter eagle]

Ahh, so that's the key., I'll give it a try. If it doesn't work I'll just re-burn it ans try to upgrade that way from the start. TY.

[noble sequoia]

But did you add a /scannow command to it?

[floral marten]

Feedback from a user who has used foxbuntu and femtofox, went away for a couple of months, and came back. I’ve been using a femtofox hat on ubuntu in the meantime.

I did a clean install of foxbuntu 1.0.0 beta, could find no breadcrumbs about how to log into it, found old breadcrumbs about the web UI from an upstream source but they were outdated. Eventually figured out how to log into my newly redeployed luckfox.

Configured it and had it working. Pointed it at alpha (based on my experience with Linux-native) to pick up 2.7.3 and it broke everything. The systemd journalctl output put it into failed mode and I had to go back to basics and copy files from the old locations, change permissions, and clear systemd failed flags.

For all the work being put into this project by many, we should admit the docs need some updating. Happy to help. Do I need to submit PRs?

How does the community expect the transition from 2.5.x (default for foxbuntu 1.0.0 beta) to 2.7 expect to occur?

I’ve done all this process onLinux native on Ubuntu on a Pi4 and it’s seamless. But the transition on foxbuntu was rocky. I’ll end up fixing it tomorrow but I’ve still not figured it out.

My guess is that everyone here has made it past a basic install many times and guess what, coming in fresh is hard. Even though I did it once before (and forgot everything. )

[restive scarab]

hrmm, I wonder if it's because of such a large jump vs what i imagine most do is more incremental slowing going through the big root-less change 2.6.x before 2.7.x as they were promoted to beta

mostly i've hit the gpio group permissions but those were either manual fix + relog or reboot, haven't had to manually move /root/.portduino to /var/lib/meshtasticd/.portduino that I can recall though

[spring juniper]

did https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/wiki/Getting-Started#initial-configuration---suggested-workflow not work for you?

FWIW I did a fresh install and config'd basically nothing then did an alpha 2.7.x update a few days ago and nothing got weird

[noble sequoia]

Just for sanity, I just updated 2.6.11 to alpha 2.7.3 with zero issues on raspbian.

[spring juniper]

important not to skip that red part though - all the important info is collapsed

[nova frost]

For all the work being put into this project by many, we should admit the docs need some updating. Happy to help. Do I need to submit PRs?

If you spot an error, please please please submit a pr or tell me what needs changing. I can do docs!

How does the community expect the transition from 2.5.x (default for foxbuntu 1.0.0 beta) to 2.7 expect to occur?

I'm fairly confident that the transition between beta versions is ok as long as the femto-config menu is used for the updates. I'll be honest - I'm genuinely surprised it works, but it's down to the initial decision to issue commands as if the user were following basic instructions rather than leaning in and editing configs directly (which is what I would've kludged and called good).

With all of that said, yes, we should have an image release with the latest beta on the repo - I'm not confident that my home-made images are ok which is what has stopped me so far.

[floral marten]

Interesting. I missed the “Click Here” because it’s not shown as a hyperlink. And the word “password” isn’t searchable with a browser “Find” function because it’s hidden behind that “hidden” link.

Because of that, I resorted to Google searches which found another site with early information but still no password.

[floral marten]

Funny, it’s not circled in red. 😃

I went to the page and searched for “password” with the browser function and it’s not there. That’s all I needed, a password. So I went on a futile search clucking every visible link on the page.

[opaque abyss]

Isn't the default password just femto

[floral marten]

I will open an issue with a suggestion on how to better show that hidden section.

[opaque abyss]

I swear they put something like "default creds are femto:femto" which means username:password

[floral marten]

Read my posts.

[mild hare]

When you login via console default credentials for root and femto are displayed

[floral marten]

Serial console? Certainly not SSH nor the web console.

[mild hare]

Hrm, I assume ssh but I always use usb-c console.

[floral marten]

ssh doesn’t because it doesn’t work that way.

[mild hare]

I'm Ruledo in the github. Also very sleepy. 😉

[floral marten]

I’ve never tried to get a serial console over USB with the luckfox.

[mild hare]

I use serial only in deployment but wifi during development. The reason being I need that 0.3w consumption for solar node.

wifi kills that number and I can't run ethernet because of remote deployment. Maybe I missed the banner over ip.

making a note to check banners.

Shouldn't have to search wiki for default login. Sorry about that

[mild hare]

Oh and you said luckfox, and I assume femtofox pro. Sorry if that's not the case.

https://tenor.com/view/hiding-under-covers-tired-sleepy-hiding-under-blanket-good-night-gif-3678616095302996622

[floral marten]

No worries. We can make it even more evident.

[floral marten]

Now that’s some battery storage!

[nova frost]

Everyone else is bugging me for 2-4s storage.
OSC: "hold my yerba mate"

[nova frost]

I was trying to declutter the page, while keeping a single-page format. I'll see if there's a better way to do expanding sections in the wiki. If not, I may just scrub them, or make a "single page" version like instructables.

Works well for the pictures on the soldering page, tho.

[floral marten]

Or pop out a second page for first time login. With a proper blue underline link 😃

Hyperlinks that aren’t shown with distinctive color or a button are considered a cursed UI. But later today if I remember to do it I can open an issue or maybe even go as far as to submit a PR.

[floral marten]

I haven't quite figured out how to open a PR on the Wiki. If I fork the repo, the Wiki isn't part of it. If I clone the wiki locally, I can't push the changes... any tips or tricks? Or should I just post the updated Markdown in an issue?

[nova frost]

The last one 🙂

I have no idea either

I think it's a hidden repo within the org, but idk

[floral marten]

https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/issues/418

[nova frost]

Updated. Many thanks! 🥰

[floral marten]

Is this the correct way to get on the alpha train for meshtasticd on FemtoFox? ```root@femtofox:/etc/apt/sources.list.d# mv meshtastic-ubuntu-beta-jammy.list meshtastic-ubuntu-alpha-jammy.list
root@femtofox:/etc/apt/sources.list.d# sed -i 's/beta/alpha/g' meshtastic-ubuntu-alpha-jammy.list
root@femtofox:/etc/apt/sources.list.d# cat meshtastic-ubuntu-alpha-jammy.list
deb https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/meshtastic/alpha/ubuntu/ jammy main

deb-src https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/meshtastic/alpha/ubuntu/ jammy main```

(basically, edit the sources file, changing beta to alpha, and changing the name of the file for completeness)

then running an upate.

[nova frost]

no

[nova frost]

this: #1329096340700921898 message

[restive scarab]

heh I've only done it that way 🙃

[nova frost]

That's what she sed

[spring juniper]

@nova frost have you made any further discoveries on the wifi dying after X hours thing.... I sorted out my battery issues but I'm apparently still running into the fox disappearing from network after a while. I tried putting in various host level tripwires for checking ping and rebooting after a few mins, as well as cron reboots at regular intervals but nothing seems to keep it from going into zombie mode. I have to physically interrupt power to 5V and it starts back up like no big deal.

[nova frost]

Even with cron reboots?

No, no further experiments or trials, tbh.

[spring juniper]

re: cron reboots - its possible it zombied before the cron ever ran I guessI should do a 15min reboot window or something extreme to confirm that

[nova frost]

The other thing you could do is see if it zombies while on ethernet and wifi

Ethernet seems to stay up fine.

Or, when zombied, try logging in via serial.

[honest bear]

Trying to install wireguard client on a fox, if anyone has any hints to make this a little more uh, less painful let me know lol. I'm not used to working with such limited resources so all apt commands seem to take 20 minutes 😅

[chrome tide]

I'm not sure if the CPU has the timing for Wiregaurd AND Meshtasticd.. Meshtasticd has a high priority also..

[honest bear]

Probably not helpful as I didnt do any serious investigations. But I had issues with my pi and fox not reconnecting to wifi after a set amount of time. I added a RTC to one of my nodes and that one seems to reconnect to wifi without any issues

[nova frost]

Same WiFi chipset?

[honest bear]

Yep exact same one

[nova frost]

Huh

Strange

[honest bear]

It was just in my vehicle so I would unplug it as needed to make it reconnect to my wifi tether to the phone lol. But I noticed with this new fox with RTC added it's been reconnecting to my house wifi automatically each time. It could all be coincidence though

[spring juniper]

Hmmm I have an RTC

[spring juniper]

ok, so retreived the ol' zombie roof node.
-no serial
-full battery (solar working)

d/c 5v lead, reattach, bingo red light back on fox is alive. 😕

[opaque abyss]

Sounds like what happens when you brownout a 4631

[spring juniper]

well @honest bear I think has at least half the puzzle

Jul 30 08:16:37 fox1 kernel: [228537.091276] [   2346]     0  2346     1774        0    14336      111             0 cron
Jul 30 08:19:01 fox1 kernel: [228537.091286] [   2350]     0  2350     1774        0    14336      111             0 cron
Jul 30 08:20:24 fox1 kernel: [228537.091295] [   2351]     0  2351     1774        0    14336      112             0 cron
**Jul 30 **08:22:58 fox1 kernel: [228537.091305] [   2355]     0  2355     1774        4    14336      107             0 cron
**Jun  4 **10:17:54 fox1 systemd-sysctl[93]: Couldn't write '176' to 'kernel/sysrq', ignoring: No such file or directory
Jun  4 10:17:54 fox1 systemd-sysctl[93]: Couldn't write '1' to 'kernel/yama/ptrace_scope', ignoring: No such file or directory
Jun  4 10:17:54 fox1 systemd[1]: Starting Flush Journal to Persistent Storage...

last I checked Linux gets real sassy when you time travel 30 days in the past

[spring juniper]

looks like it might actually just be OOMing due to tons of threads getting spawned... feels like a good reason to update to 2.7 and see if it helps

[slate sandal]

Hi, I'm using the E22-900M30S transmitter module and compared to the rak4631, it's pretty deaf to weak and distant signals on RX. Does anyone have the same experience? Do you use an output filter, for example? I found a few posts on Reddit where they have the same problem without any results. I believe the problem is in the signal filtering, because the rak has a saw filter on the pcb, but the E22 is without filtering. I found a cavity filter, but before I buy it, I'm asking about your experiences.

[nova frost]

I'm not sure that the RAK has a saw filter - where have you seen this?

It's true that the e22-30db has both a power amplifier (pa) for tx and a low noise amplifier (lna) for on receive, and this can make noisy environments worse. A filter may help in this case, but there's not many saw filters that are suitable for this arrangement. Some ceramic filters and cavity filters are suitable, however, and some people find it does help.

[spring juniper]

I’m in a high cell noise area and the Cavity filters took node from deaf to same Rx range as RAK in my experience @slate sandal

[dense latch]

are we there yet?

[lavish sorrel]

https://tenor.com/view/are-we-there-yet-deadpool-gif-5676800

[silk frigate]

Hi, any tips on getting a USB WiFi dongle to work? I have "ID 0e8d:7612 MediaTek Inc. MT7612U 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wireless Adapter", which I think is on the Supported Hardware wiki page as mt76x2u (but untested).

The kmods get loaded:

mt76x2u                 8812  0
mt76x2_common           8402  1 mt76x2u
mt76x02_usb             5027  1 mt76x2u
mt76_usb                8513  2 mt76x2u,mt76x02_usb
mt76x02_lib            33101  3 mt76x2u,mt76x02_usb,mt76x2_common
mt76                   27023  5 mt76_usb,mt76x02_lib,mt76x2u,mt76x02_usb,mt76x2_common
mac80211              321802  5 mt76_usb,mt76,mt76x02_lib,mt76x2u,mt76x02_usb
libarc4                  799  1 mac80211
cfg80211              184648  4 mt76,mac80211,mt76x02_lib,mt76x02_usb

but the interface doesn't show up (e.g., in iwconfig). And dmesg shows:

[    7.379854] cfg80211: Loaded X.509 cert 'sforshee: 00b28ddf47aef9cea7'
[    7.401849] cfg80211: loaded regulatory.db is malformed or signature is missing/invalid
[    7.698924] usb 1-1: reset high-speed USB device number 2 using xhci-hcd
[    7.880223] mt76x2u 1-1:1.0: ASIC revision: 76120044
[    7.951937] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Ring expansion failed
[    8.314630] rkcif-mipi-lvds: get_remote_sensor: remote pad is null
[    8.314676] rkcif-mipi-lvds: rkcif_update_sensor_info: stream[1] get remote sensor_sd failed!
[    8.314687] stream_cif_mipi_id1: update sensor info failed -19
( similar rkcif-related errors repeated a few times )
[    8.687113] mt76x2u: probe of 1-1:1.0 failed with error -12
[    8.687249] usbcore: registered new interface driver mt76x2u

Error -12 is ENOMEM. Not enough memory? Seems like there should be enough early in the boot though.

That's with the adapter plugged in during boot. Sometimes, if I plug it in after boot, I get:
kernel: kworker/0:3: page allocation failure: order:5, mode:0x40dc0(GFP_KERNEL|__GFP_COMP|__GFP_ZERO), nodemask=(null)
followed by a stack trace that mentions mt76x2u_probe, mt76x2u_register_device, ieee80211_register_hw, ieee80211_txq_setup_flows followed by various memory statistics.

[silk frigate]

I kinda got it working--it needs several manual steps and isn't actually practical:

Connect a hub:

[   76.102838] hub 1-1:1.0: USB hub found
[   76.102986] hub 1-1:1.0: 4 ports detected

Plug the wifi adapter into a hub port:

[   86.586961] cfg80211: Loading compiled-in X.509 certificates for regulatory database
[   86.643918] cfg80211: Loaded X.509 cert 'sforshee: 00b28ddf47aef9cea7'
[   86.691821] cfg80211: loaded regulatory.db is malformed or signature is missing/invalid
[   86.947077] usb 1-1.4: reset high-speed USB device number 3 using xhci-hcd
[   87.178516] mt76x2u 1-1.4:1.0: ASIC revision: 76120044
[   87.220716] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Ring expansion failed
[   87.941496] mt76x2u: probe of 1-1.4:1.0 failed with error -12
[   87.941689] usbcore: registered new interface driver mt76x2u

Plug in some other device into another hub port (I used an AIC8800 wifi dongle that there are no drivers for):

Unplug both:

[  105.158504] usb 1-1.4: USB disconnect, device number 3

Plug in the wifi:

[  110.286299] usb 1-1.4: reset high-speed USB device number 5 using xhci-hcd
[  110.517649] mt76x2u 1-1.4:1.0: ASIC revision: 76120044
[  110.633890] mt76x2u 1-1.4:1.0: ROM patch build: 20141115060606a
[  110.798873] mt76x2u 1-1.4:1.0: Firmware Version: 0.0.00
[  110.798889] mt76x2u 1-1.4:1.0: Build: 1
[  110.798896] mt76x2u 1-1.4:1.0: Build Time: 201507311614____
[  111.706193] ieee80211 phy1: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel_ht'
[  120.954220] wlan0: authenticate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
( etc... )
[  122.358280] wlan0: associated```

It seems the key is to have the wifi and something else connected, disconnect both, then connect the wifi. The most I've been able to simplify the steps down to is: boot with the hub, wifi, and other USB device connected. Unplug wifi and other device. Plug in wifi.

[mild hare]

Only sorta caught this. I have never had issues like this. Unsuppored? dongle or weird hub

[silk frigate]

There wasn't a hub involved originally, and I don't want to use a hub. The hub is what makes it (sorta) work. Maybe it's the wifi dongle, I dunno

[mild hare]

oooh. The dongle. Nornally the ones on the supported list "just work".

[silk frigate]

I have three, but this is the only one the femtofox has drivers for.

[mild hare]

naw, that's an 803.12ac

mt7601 I think is the one you are thinking of

[silk frigate]

No, this one has drivers too... if there weren't any drivers, it wouldn't work no matter how much fiddling I did 🙂

As https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/wiki/Supported-Hardware says, "The following wifi chipsets/devices have their drivers included in the OS images. Most of these have not been tested." The mt76x2u is listed as having drivers, but untested.

[mild hare]

Gotcha. I have never used the one you are testing

[silk frigate]

My other two are aic8800 and mt7921au (which don't have drivers)

I guess I can buy one of the tested/recommended ones in the list, but it seems that if I can get the one I have working with some fiddling, there should be a way to get it to work without fiddling. xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Ring expansion failed seems to be the source of the problem. https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/3919 is about the RPi, but has some things to try for debugging the "ring expansion failed" problem. I'll give them a try later.

[nova frost]

Thanks for going down the rabbit hole on this. We're somewhat limited by the age of the distro available, and the difficulty of building what we do have.

[limber night]

Anyone consider getting MeshCore to run on the femtofox instead of Meshtastic?

[nova frost]

I've already asked 😉

Meshcore on Linux doesn't seem to be a priority.

Anyway, don't be afraid to dream a little bigger. Why not both?

[warm basalt]

@thorn birch heya, these filters might be useful to add to your github :]

somewhere near the LNA info, because these are needed to fight the LNA

[quasi onyx]

not the finnish links tho 🙃

[restive scarab]

is the 866MHz version better matched? cause for 915MHz they're not so great for LongFast/Slot20 (vs MediumFast/MediumSlow)

[silk frigate]

I did end up buying a wifi adapter from the recommended list, an RTL8723BU, and it works as expected. The mt76x2u adapter does work on an RPi4, but it's running a different kernel version.

I probably won't spend much more time troubleshooting the mt76x2u on the Femtofox, but it would be good to note on the Supported Hardware wiki that it's been tested and found to not work. I guess the wiki isn't editable by the public? Do I open a github issue requesting the change?

Also, what's the "Meshtastic wifi sync service"?

Ah, the Help button in femto-config actually has an explanation 🙂 "The Meshtastic wifi sync service synchronizes system wifi settings with Meshtastic wifi settings. This allows you to use Meshtastic's remote node administration feature to enable/disable wifi."

Why does disabling the wifi sync service in femto-config prompt "This will take the node OFFLINE and will not restart!"? It takes the sync service offline, but I interpret "the node" as the Meshtastic node, and that stays online.

[nova frost]

Text issue, I think. Sorry about that!

[nova frost]

Can you put in an issue, and I'll update the wiki?

[silk frigate]

Sure thing, thanks!

[fallow chasm]

Can some direct me to where you can find the instructions on installing the aprstastic package on the Femtofox? I am a licensed Amateur, I understand about non licensed users are not allowed on the Amateur bands, etc, etc, etc. TYIA

[noble sequoia]

I have a question/comment about Femtofox that may not go over well here, but oh well. I bet it would make a fantastic rnode if it can be compiled for it... Do you know of any big stumbling blocks for that path?

[mild hare]

download sdk and find out for us 😁

[noble sequoia]

Well I may be temporarily unemployed, so I might. I don't have the hardware yet (money money money)... Makes testing difficult

[restive scarab]

theoretically you only need the ~$10 Luckfox Pico Mini for the first 90% (last 10% being the other 90% on full hw)

[mild hare]

Who's selling femtofox pro boards? I'm out of em.

People keep hitting me up. I have like 4 for myself and 1 sitting in a box for @chrome tide

[quasi onyx]

deam

[mild hare]

you got any?

[quasi onyx]

1 😅

[mild hare]

oof ok.

I think including demos I pushed out 200+.

[quasi onyx]

holy

[mild hare]

~220

[quasi onyx]

i had 5 from tom and now left with one that doesent have a owner yet 😅

one i left for me

[chrome tide]

I feel whole again!!! Been w/o a cellphone since Friday.. :\

[quasi onyx]

deam

[quasi onyx]

nvm, no longer have an extra one 😅

maybe need more 😅

yup, someone just asked lol

argh

[forest current]

I looked into it a while back, also for the Pi hat. Havent looked in a while (kinda gave up on reticulum) but last I knew the dev was considering adding linux-native functionality but hadnt yet

[quasi onyx]

Apparently we have a femto in our community that only sends but can't receive 😅

[restive scarab]

sounds like the E22900M3#S Rx sensitivity issue that's come up last few months, get em to try a filter!

[quasi onyx]

It's weird that my nodes don't have that issue

Not femto tho

[forest current]

mine had that issue as well, something with the 900m30s and the noise overload thing

havent gotten a filter yet though

[nova frost]

Oops - was meant to sort you something...

Hey, did you try that other radio board I sent you?

[forest current]

Yeah that one works great

But it has the wio radio so wouldnt be affected by the noise issue

[lavish sorrel]

Did the wifi mesh control break with the introduction of running the meshtasticd service as non-root? for whatever reason mine isn't working.

[nova frost]

Might have done...

[nova frost]

I'll try and send you a different amped module to test.

Might need @mild hare to make a prototype PCB 😉

[nova frost]

Actually, yes, I think it will break it. It was always a little bit flakey for me...

[lavish sorrel]

I just need to figure out how to remotely trigger the physical button and i should be good lol

[lavish sorrel]

i actually have a switchbot but the button is too tiny for it lol

[nova frost]

Just run the power through a domestic light switch, and have the switchbot do that.

Follow me for more straightforward problem solving.

[hasty bolt]

I have a switch bot pushing my rak button haha

[lavish sorrel]

Or I just fork a popular BBS and hack the function into existence!

[astral marsh]

Could anyone assist a linux newb in using WinSCP to edit files on femtofox??

Specifically to edit meshing-around files/config etc???

[nova frost]

Which files?

[nova frost]

How much progress did you make?

[astral marsh]

I can view files with Femto as my login but not download or upload

Just look through directories

[nova frost]

ok, the ways I've twiddled with Meshing Around have either been:

1. on my raspi, via VNC (not possilbe on Femto)
2. making my own fork and pulling that in, instead of direct from Spud
3. In nano via ssh

[floral marten]

Use Visual Studio Code. You can open files on remote machines.

In my opinion I suggest that if you are going to run a FemtoFox, being able to navigate Linux is a must have skill. Just asking folks for one off help on a case by case basis is a recipe for disaster. Learn Linux and the tools and shells that support it. You don’t need to be expert, but you need to get beyond WinSCP.

[mild hare]

I cant really recommend it for security but many times I use a samba share and Visual Studio Code and just work directly to the fox.

[floral marten]

But VSCode can just do it directly. It might be a plugin but it’s super useful. Why chew up more RAM running Samba when VSCode can just operate over SSH and get the job done directly?

Haha I’m assuming that VSCode remote can run in that low memory environment in the first place.

[mild hare]

oh yeah it does work with ssh in VSC. I just am prone to old habits. My dev femtofox runs samba always and it's not a prob.

[floral marten]

Hehe.

Yeah I understand old habits.

But the whole point of the femtofox is that it’s Linux. Trying to avoid Linux and owning a Femtofox is like buying a car and complaining about having to learn how to drive 🤣

[mild hare]

I only have 1 windows machine, and it's new to me only because one single CAD app was being a pain in wine and I was lazy/busy

[floral marten]

Well I wasn’t directly referring to you. 😜

[nova frost]

https://tenor.com/view/david-tennant-what-did-i-do-this-time-mistake-mistaken-wrong-gif-5739191

[marsh totem]

Is a non-meshtastic question ok here?
I'm also interested in playing with reticulum and this would be a nice way to replace Pi zero2 W, usb hub, LoRa microcontroller board monster that I currently have and that pulls too much power. I did try, but RNS by default has dependencies which don't have 32bit builds automatically found..
Really just asking in case anyone else has found a solution I can steal instead of trying to work it all out myself.

[marsh totem]

Yeah, also things like WinSCP work fine if you want a lazy way to move files about from windows.

[nova frost]

I haven't seen anything, but I'm sure it's possible.

[floral marten]

Yes, but doesn’t WinSCP basically move the files? Can it edit remote files without shuttling the file back and forth? I haven’t used it in years because I gave up using Windows as my primary desktop circa 2007.

[marsh totem]

You can right click --> edit a plain text file like a script or whatever if you want to make simple edits. Behind the scenes I think it's essentially moving an edited version over the top of the original, but it's pretty seamless.

Haha, yes I've been pretty much exclusively Linux on my own machine since ~2002 (fond memories of recompiling the kernal with patches just to get audio to work), but work forces Windows on me.

[floral marten]

I’ve had the pleasure of being able to use a Mac at work since 2007. That first company was a windows only laptop org BUT they had a web designer who quit and IT was sitting on the MBP they had used for compatibility testing. I asked if I could use it and they said “sure but don’t ask us to help you with anything”.

All of my employers since have given me a choice of macOS or Windows laptops. I live mostly in a browser or terminal to a Linux bastion anyhow.

[nocturne birch]

I’m running reticulum on a few femtofoxes - just pip3 install rns worked for me

The main radio on the fox is on Meshtastic and I’m using an external RAK board as an RNode

Heya @nova frost sorry if this is a silly question.. but I’ve exhausted documentation and googling…

What’s the trick to compiling meshtasticd as armv7l architecture to run on the Femtofox?

I’ve been trying to build the master branch with JB’s fix for the LR1121 but I think it’s building arm64 or something.. as I’m getting an exec format on the fox (but it runs on a pi)

[nova frost]

I have no idea! Get him to make an alpha release ASAP

[nocturne birch]

Haha cool I'll ask him! 😅

[twilit mountain]

I'd ask around in the Reticulum community on Matrix 🙂 They're nice guys (I lurk in there)

There are Reticulum OpenWRT builds (though I don't know if they're still being maintained).
I presume that supporting (32-bit) armv7l in Ubuntu is possible as well 🤷

[formal raft]

Hi WillE - did you get any feedback on this? I would like to attach a BME280 to my node

[chrome tide]

No, my test unit is waiting for RMA, which should be here friday..

[formal raft]

Is there any information for connecting the sensor to the board?

[restive scarab]

SCL -> Pin 15 / SDA -> Pin 14 / Vcc -> 3.3V / Gnd -> Gnd https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/wiki/Femtofox-Pinout

[hollow dragon]

i've got reticulum running in a few realities. my fav- variation is a pi5 with meshadv hat- usb rnode - reticulm bridge- getting there with this - GOT the DEV landandair on matrix on tap- love the support!
https://github.com/landandair/RNS_Over_Meshtastic
I'm just a nurse dude script kiddie- with a past IT bckgrnd. having fun with pmw and i are working on it - he's in maui - i'm on BI
RNS group... https://matrix.to/#/#reticulum:matrix.org
have a few arden routers than i'm networking meshtastic - rns - meshing-around with-- a work in progress

[dire shuttle]

I'm having some issues with Fox based nodes becoming unresponsive and I'm wondering if it's a low voltage issue. I'm supplying 5V by converting a minimally 12V LifePo battery.
What's an easy way to add 12V monitoring to a Fox?

How hard is it to get the USB voltage that goes to the fox? I was thinking I could try to fire off a message if it drops before some threshold

[nova frost]

You can add an ina3221 or 219 to the fox via i2c. It will tolerate up to 26v

There should be somewhere to measure the 5v from (which is basically the usb-in).

[dire shuttle]

Oh, wow. I thought they basically did 0-5v. Thanks!

[nova frost]

Theres some other ones in the series that go higher -36 and 48v

[dire shuttle]

Is there a threshold for this project getting promoted to its own real channel? I always lose track of the thread and foxes don't seem to be going anywhere

[limber night]

Does anyone know if there are plans to have femtofox boards available for sale again?

[nova frost]

Depends where you are in the world 🙂

[dire shuttle]

You could do a batch of the community edition ones

I think all you lose is the extra USB-C?

[limber night]

USA,

[nova frost]

Yeah, I have improved plans for the CE board, actually.

[nova frost]

Mostly, yes.

But yeah, a group buy might be the best option.

[dire shuttle]

I've never done JLC-ish order and am afraid I'd bodge it and somehow half the parts would be upside-down or something.

[nova frost]

Tariffs have made it very difficult to do an order of any size.

[nova frost]

I can help with that.

Or I can find someone to help with it.

[limber night]

Great, please try to add voltage monitoring on this batch, and would love to see meshcore added as an option too

[dire shuttle]

...

At least they're not asking for much.

[nova frost]

Meshcore isn't up to me, and I'm persona au gratin over there...

[dire shuttle]

Just write MeshCored

Jeez.

/s

[nova frost]

Yeah, idk what to say.

Samop?

[dire shuttle]

I don't know what that means

Meshcore not working on linux-native is part of what's holding me back on it right now - all of my good nodes are linux-native ones

[limber night]

@dire shuttle I seem thanks, I didn't know which was the chicken and which was the egg, guess if meshcore gets the code, you guys can script it

[dire shuttle]

FemtoFox is mostly a hardware project. Meshtastic and MeshCore are both primarily software/firmware projects.

Creating a decent Linux MeshCore client will be a huge effort for probably multiple devs over the span of weeks or months, not something Tom is going flick a switch and enable

[limber night]

Got ya, thanks for the feedback

[nova frost]

Hmmm.... I was thinking about this. It's a hardware project now, but that's because @mild hare and @fiery finch did a bang-up job with the OS and the config menus that they're still working with minimal intervention. I stand on the shoulders of giants.

[marsh totem]

Yes, there are inevitably a few imperfections, but the software side is honestly pretty good too for a hardware-first project of this size. Honestly really pleased with my femtofox, hardware and software, biggest surprise is just how low the average power consumption is - it's averaging lower than the ESP32 node it replaced in my loft, which I did not expect. Biggest limitation is probably the 64MB RAM, I really don't like any swapping - especially to SD cards and 64MB just isn't enough to avoid it with the necessary software stack as it is. Thanks @nova frost and to everyone who has contributed to the project.

[nova frost]

What voltage do you want to monitor, and what sensor suite did you have in mind? Ina3221 comes with certain strings attached - an expectation of a battery, for example. Ina219 is one per channel - you want 5v and 3.3v? Will it be fast enough to pick up a dip?

[nova frost]

Samop = simply a matter of programming 🙂

[dire shuttle]

"at that point, it's just coding"

[nova frost]

"I've had all of the ideas, why aren't you implementing them?"

Said no one, ever

Anyway, I should probably sleep now.

[chrome tide]

I'm going to attempt to kill a luckfox w/ compiling wifi drivers today..

[mild hare]

no headers exist, I never finished, hit a wall and did something else. let us know how it goes.

[chrome tide]

Oh that's gonna be fun.. LOL

Using https://github.com/brektrou/rtl8821CU

Not gonna hold my breathe tho..

[mild hare]

fun fact. On my Open Sauce build, I did not use wifi.

I only use wifi for development

otherwise why use femtofox? it kills the whole power savings

[chrome tide]

I'm trying to get another wifi NIC I have working, to see if the crash I keep getting is related to the NIC drivers, or something else..

[mild hare]

i mean people do. But mine literally lives on solar with no down time

[nova frost]

I sent you bits...

Simply A Matter of Soldering™

[chrome tide]

Yes, I've been lazy, and don't wanna listen to the wife bitch about me pulling out the soldering gear right now..

[nova frost]

fair

[chrome tide]

I look at them daily, saying I should solder them up.. LOL

[mild hare]

why do we do this to Tom? I have unsoldered bits too 😭

[nova frost]

Someday, maybe...

[mild hare]

On the wife front, I gotta fight mine for room on the maker front

[nova frost]

nice

[mild hare]

She won some first place ribbons at a quilt show and the old ladies started doting on her. now I screwed and gotta fight for space. part of why I am trying to get my shop in order.

tank girl meets quilting guild. Ramone's tank top and all.

sewing machine cost more than my 3d printer...

[chrome tide]

YUP!

We have a lady in our neighborhood that hand looms rugs..

Out of her garage.. It's 120f in the shade here!!! LOL

It grabbed some headers...

Get:7 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports jammy-updates/main armhf linux-headers-5.15.0-153 all 5.15.0-153.163 [12.3 MB]
Get:8 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports jammy-updates/main armhf linux-headers-5.15.0-153-generic armhf 5.15.0-153.163 [1106 kB]
Get:9 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports jammy-updates/main armhf linux-headers-generic armhf 5.15.0.153.153 [2316 B]

Prolly not the ones it needs tho, knowing my luck.. LOL

[chrome tide]

Booo......

Error! Your kernel headers for kernel 5.10.160 cannot be found.
Please install the linux-headers-5.10.160 package or use the --kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it's located.

Need to figure out how to get those headers installed now..

[nova frost]

@forest current

[chrome tide]

Doing a sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) right now

HOPING that will be all I need

unlikely tho.. LOL

I wish there was a way to mount the SD card on a rPi, and build everything for it on the rPI.. LOL

[mild hare]

@buoyant ermine @neat frigate yo, for somebody that doesn't NEED the super low 0.3w you guys got your solution all ironed? link?

Was pretty sure yall had a good ubuntu and hat all finished up

[buoyant ermine]

There is a published image for the Lyra Uktra, and I have hats

[restive scarab]

Lyra Ultra also has eMMC, it's soooo much nicer than Pico Mini w/SD card

[finite slate]

Can you send a link or reference to that Lyra ultra? Only finding medical solutions pages

[chrome tide]

Yea, just like I thought..

E: Unable to locate package linux-headers-5.10.160
E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'linux-headers-5.10.160'
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'linux-headers-5.10.160'

[mild hare]

told ya man, long time known thing

i got close to getting headers done and then gave up

[chrome tide]

Wait, the wifi card is seen, the kernel module appears to be loaded, but it looks like the firmware is missing..

[mild hare]

oh that's doable then maybe

[chrome tide]

trying sudo apt install linux-firmware linux-firmware-nonfree

[mild hare]

sweet, I think I included all that but maybe not non-free

[chrome tide]

Yea, I think it's the nonfree that is needed

especially for RealTek

[chrome tide]

Well crap....

E: Unable to locate package linux-firmware-nonfree

[buoyant ermine]

https://github.com/wehooper4/Meshtastic-Hardware/tree/main/Luckfox Ultra Hat

@restive scarab figured out how to get it to actually work

[chrome tide]

I give up.. Just gonna have to listen to the wife.. LOL

[chrome tide]

I sometimes wish the Femtofox was PoE powered.. LOL

[nova frost]

Soon™

[quasi onyx]

Haha

[nova frost]

But also why?

[quasi onyx]

U were faster than i 😅

[chrome tide]

I have PoE switches at my house, and having to run USB and ethernet, is a PITA..

[nova frost]

Poe splitter?

They're like 5$ plus terrifs

[chrome tide]

Yea, that's where I'm going..

[mild hare]

defeats the whole purpose though

[chrome tide]

True, which is why I am looking at splitters for the setup..

[mild hare]

@chrome tide I mean if it's gonna use poe why not pi 5 with meshsticks or toads and a 7" oled with moving googly eyes to freak out the neighbors?

[chrome tide]

Cuz that's almost double the price of a femtofox..

[mild hare]

fair

[chrome tide]

A 7" DSI screen is around 50-100USD alone..

HDMI is 35-80..

[mild hare]

i2c oled

[chrome tide]

7" oled?

[nova frost]

Where are you getting your hdmi leads?

[chrome tide]

Ali and Amazon.. Depending on the manf..

[nova frost]

Oh. My main supplier is an unguarded IT spares cupboard.

They don't stock pi 5s, tho.

There's a couple of pi 3b+ knocking around, tho.

And genuine Arduino megas.

[chrome tide]

I'd like to get a job that had those supplies.. LOL

[mild hare]

does the nebra poe work? I havent gone beyond making oh face from opening the lid.

[nova frost]

You have to go to the office to steal stock up acquire them, so it's swings and roundabouts.

[nova frost]

It does

It's underpowered - see their thread.

But it works.

That prototype I sent you has Poe pins, btw.

[mild hare]

I saw 💪

[chrome tide]

YUP! I have 1 of my 4 testing with a Nebra Hat, and SDR, for ADS-B..

[nova frost]

What's the power requirements for those other things?

[chrome tide]

I haven't checked the power requirements for my SDRs.. They are Nooelec.. https://www.amazon.com/Nooelec-RTL-SDR-SDR-100kHz-1-75GHz-Enclosure/dp/B01HA642SW/

Waiting for silicon tape, thread sealer, and 4:1 heat shrink to come in, so I can mount it.

[nova frost]

270-330mA @5v

[raw violet]

im working on it 🙂 just have to find some more time. i'd say i'm 70%

not a client, just a linux port of meshcore repeater firmware

[nova frost]

I'm still wondering what it's going to do when it gets on there.

Like, be more router-y?

[hollow dragon]

going to re-work my femtofox. thinking of poe- using a old microtik routers poe -on arden just thinking... 🤔 🤪

[nova frost]

Poe is nice

one wire, one plug

[raw violet]

wdym? i can answer any qs but this may not be the right venue

basically it would just be a repeater, no interaction or cli chat client

i could look into a custom build that combines a companion node and repeater but that would be a later thing

[nova frost]

Yeah, you're right, probably not the time or place.

[raw violet]

still valuable because you can update the binary remotely over the internet, which is what i like the most about the femtofox/linux nodes

[nova frost]

True, I always forget that

-# I definitely don't have a linux node on 2.5.x firmware in my loft

[raw violet]

😄

an ansible playbook for installing updates on femtofoxen would be cool

again... need to find more time 😄

[nova frost]

Nah, it was more that I had hoped a wave of linux nodes would deliver what meshcore claims to, except smarter.

Events, dear boy, events...

[raw violet]

what was your vision for that? additional features that are only included in linux builds? or something like external programs driving the client? afaik the current meshtastic native build is pretty standard

just curious, i'm always looking for more projects to put on my infinite queue 🙂

[dire shuttle]

This is basically what I was hoping for. Meshing Around is great, but there are still enough issues with the underlying protocol that it's not enough on its own

[mild hare]

Man, I need to find time to release my bbs framework. Or find somebody who can take it over

[raw violet]

btw, any way to purchase more femtofoxen in the us? looks like etsy is out of stock

[mild hare]

I'm out of stock. 🙁

[raw violet]

i hope you got some boards in before the de minimis exemption ended 🙂

ah shoot

[dire shuttle]

Any of the 1W node projects being available in bulk would probably easy the FemtoFox demand

I wouldn't be surprised if 50-70% of FemtoFoxes were just the easiest way to get a 1W node

[mild hare]

I did, they porkour'ed right off the shelf

[dire shuttle]

I saw a crazy one where someone just soldered an Ebyte 900M30S straight onto an ProMicro nRF board with kapton tape between them

[nova frost]

I mean, if it fits, it fits, right?

[dire shuttle]

No, no

If it fits, it sits

[nova frost]

Appropriate cat fetish?

😉

[nova frost]

I like to think of it as the easiest way to add a bot to a mesh without having to buy a pi and a hard-to-get hat.

[nova frost]

I'm looking again at how to get them in if/when tariffs fall, but I doubt they'll return to workable deminimis levels.

I'm also looking at modularising the board (yes, yes 🐦‍⬛) so that people can try and sidestep some of the RF issues.

And a suitable solar charger to match, because frankly if it's not solar powered then any pi + will do.

Which, because it's me, requires spaceship control and 9 months of testing.

[mild hare]

🎶 David Bowie song... 🎶

[nova frost]

Indeed 🫡

[dire shuttle]

@buoyant ermine has a SolarXiao+ that might serve well as a reference

[nova frost]

Which one? 😝

[dire shuttle]

Probably this one? https://github.com/wehooper4/Meshtastic-Hardware/tree/main/XaioSeries/Prototypes/V0.9/SolarXaio

[nova frost]

It's kind of you to find that, but I already have a design in flight.

And whilst Hooper has followed solid principles in designing and making those, I prefer to make my own mistakes 🙂

[quasi onyx]

How else would u learn?

[nova frost]

Well, you're supposed to learn from others' mistakes.

[dire shuttle]

All of this is basically magic to me

Kind of like antennas and magnets

[nova frost]

It's magic to me, too, and I suspect that many of the experts are simply repeating the spells written by the elder wizards. Even then, I'm not certain they did truly grok the things they were making.

[marsh totem]

Heltec Lora32 V4 looks to be inbound and ~1W RF output. No idea on price and will probably have a higher average power draw than the Femtofox.

[dire shuttle]

Oooo

[marsh totem]

Also Heltec, so maybe wait for the V4.1 😉 (yes I have an original T114)

[mild hare]

and no linux. but many many people don't need linux and just want a 1w node.

[marsh totem]

Exactly, was in reply to someone previously talking about FF as easiest way to get 1W and 'easing demand'. I wanted Linux.. not made the most of it yet really, but have plans.

[nova frost]

Main use ATM is as an answerphone...

[marsh totem]

I have some python that does weather, RSS feed headlines, etc in response to commands. Made a really bodgy wrapper to LLMs via ollama too, but that's definitely a toy rather than useful and others have done it much more neatly since.

[crude tartan]

Forgive me for my ignorance as I've never done this before, but I'm trying to follow the instruction on github for the DIY section and I'm confused by the BOM secion on JLPCB. Shouldn't all components be multiples of 5 because I'm trying to buy 5 boards? Why are there odd numbers like 9, 7, and 21?

[mild hare]

That is weird. Afaik yeah multiples of 5.

@nova frost know what may have gone wrong?

[quasi onyx]

Nope

Depending what components and what sizes they are u neee multiple

[crude tartan]

What, like spare Legos in the box or something?

[quasi onyx]

Yup

U know if something is broken or gets broken in the assembly process

Or something gets lost etc

[crude tartan]

So they throw some extras in to put on yourself just in case? Okay, I guess that's reasonable.

[quasi onyx]

Nah, 😅 they stay at jlc

But afaik if they are not used they are in ur library for later use

If ever

[mild hare]

what? I have never heard of this or had it happen

[quasi onyx]

For 0201 u can see it more i think

[mild hare]

I mean it would have happened to me by now right?

[quasi onyx]

U did also buy more parts what was on those boards

So have i

[mild hare]

no way

damn it, I dun wanna dig through screens.

@crude tartan I have trouble buying this as real, but if @quasi onyx says it I'm a 95% believer.

[crude tartan]

Oh, so they charge you for components that are easily lost/damaged in assembly by the pick and place machines. I don't mind, I just want my boards to work. 😅

I was thinking that they might have low stock and some of the boards would come missing components or something along that line.

[mild hare]

@crude tartan as usual @quasi onyx is correct.

[crude tartan]

Thank you, that's reassuring.

As a final sanity check, D2, D3, and J1 don't need to be populated and this render looks correct?

[mild hare]

Unfortunately I haven't built community edition boards, so not sure.

[quasi onyx]

I'm usually right 🤣

But not always 😅

[mild hare]

Yuup

[quasi onyx]

I just wish i had more money 😅

[mild hare]

And time!

[quasi onyx]

Time i got ish but money not rly

Gotta save money to move

[crude tartan]

Simple solution: say you have more money. Because you're always right, it will be so. 🧠

[quasi onyx]

Make boards = money 😅

Got 700€ worth of pcbs in my cart 🤣

[mild hare]

$? Imma have an aneurysm before that happens.

https://tenor.com/view/bob-ross-pointing-nod-gif-13127635

[quasi onyx]

4 different boards

All my designs ofc :)

[mild hare]

even cooler

[quasi onyx]

I now just need the money from somewhere 😅

[mild hare]

I would say go into debt but I may be ignorant and it's just an American thing

or sell off body parts that can be 3d printed.

I only say this because I was considering financing a Formlabs Dental resin printer as a side hustle

[quasi onyx]

I mean i do have money, buuut i have to move at somepoint

[nova frost]

Correct - D2&3 aren't needed if you got D1. J1 is only for repairing the traces if you had to cut them.

And as iris says, they waste some parts loading the machines with non-standard bits. They don't let you keep em if they all stay in place 😉

[crude tartan]

Awesome! Thanks for your help, everybody.

[dire shuttle]

I'm seeing a lot lower performance from both of my FemtoFox nodes than models would suggest and I'm wondering if I've accidentally set them to transmit at low power or something.
Assuming I want it to transmit at full 1W, what's the correct value to set in meshtasticd?

[nova frost]

30

There's no power limit in the yaml, so you should get the full 1W from anything over 22

You may be experiencing lna desense

In which case a filter is needed to cure.

Or extreme surgery.

[opaque abyss]

Also make sure you power with 5v not 3.7

[nova frost]

Do you want some of the newer HW designs to try out? I've got 1W radios without the lna.

[nova frost]

I forgot!

Yes, that.

[opaque abyss]

I built my entire solar femtofox around the concept so it better be correct

[nova frost]

No, it definitely needs 5v for proper output.

Lab tests confirm.

[dire shuttle]

I've got both of them behind a cavity filter, so the LNA shouldn't be the problem

I need to double check their power levels next time I'm close enough to admin reliably

Right now for some reason I can only get traceroutes to one of them

I need to mess with keys or something, I was seeing no-channel errors for a while

[nova frost]

Probably time for a check-up.

Check they're not on fire or underwater.

[dire shuttle]

It's attached to my in-laws' house, so I'd know by now if it were the former

something is weird. I think the link being weak is only part of it though. It looks like 3/4 of my traceroutes succeed but none of the DMs get a response and I never get delivery confirmation if I send from another node

And I'd expect that to work when there's only one node between us

That's basically me -> roof -> remote node

[nova frost]

Key mismatch?

Someone spoofing?

Can you try a fresh node?

I like to keep spares on stock for just this eventuality 😉

[marsh totem]

That's exciting. Decent tx power without LNA noising up the RX?! Is that something that's available now?

[marsh totem]

I'm using a boost board to get 5.1V from ~3.2V LFP cells in my solar femtofox - but it's just some cheap AliExpress board so it's not super-efficient and I worry if it's also creating noise..

[floral marten]

If you are going through your roof, and you are worried about power at your indoor node, you are chasing the wrong cat.

Your roof node could probably hear your indoor node at 1dBm. And if your roof node is seeing the remote packets it should rebroadcast to your local node (unless it’s hearing other rebroadcasts).

To test for that, set your roof node on “router late”.

Or am I misinterpreting your description of the problem?

[dire shuttle]

I should've written "me -> roof node -> remote node"

I have a G2 on the roof into an ACASOM cavity filter and then an 8dBi omni. FemtoFox is the remote node and is hooked up to a yagi and ACASOM as well.

The roof node is currently set to ROUTER as it's by far the best sited node in town on MediumFast

[floral marten]

IMO a roof node should never be a ROUTER mode unless your roof is on top of a mountain 2-3000’ above the rest of the community.

You could try router late. Which is guaranteed to rebroadcast while router is not (another router could beat it to the punch).

Addendum: or unless the community asks you to run it in router and they agree it is helping.

[dire shuttle]

IMO you should have some fraction of the mesh be routers, especially the the geography demands it. Further, I'm on MediumFast specifically so that I can go heavy on the routers.

In our area, everybody being clients just means that packets disappear into holes

That's a big part of why so many people are moving to MeshCore here. I've got hardware in other people's hands with MT, so doing the same is tricky and I intend to stick with MT on MF so far

[floral marten]

That’s good nuance. Thanks!

[dire shuttle]

For some reason, meshtasticd on my FemtoFox is rejecting an update to the MQTT config

I've tried setting it from the CLI and the Android app and both it confirms and then fails to actually have a change happen

I'm digging around the configs but haven't found where that's stored so far

[mild hare]

it's not in config files

[dire shuttle]

The startup log says:

Using /etc/meshtasticd/config.yaml as config file
Also using "/etc/meshtasticd/config.d/femtofox_SX1262_TCXO.yaml" as additional config file
Also using "/etc/meshtasticd/config.d/femto_config.yaml" as additional config file

Ah

[mild hare]

just for kicks try sudo femto-config and change it there

[nova frost]

sfc

[dire shuttle]

Trying that now. Slowly.

... this looks like Contact

[mild hare]

hrm, yeah that got changed and I havent check it out yet

[dire shuttle]

That also didn't work.

"mqtt": {
  "enabled": true,
  "address": "mqtt.meshtastic.org",
  "username": "meshdev",
  "password": "large4cats",
  "encryptionEnabled": true,
  "root": "msh/US",
  "mapReportingEnabled": true,
  "mapReportSettings": {
    "publishIntervalSecs": 3600,
    "positionPrecision": 0,
    "shouldReportLocation": false
  },
  "jsonEnabled": false,
  "tlsEnabled": false,
  "proxyToClientEnabled": false
},

[mild hare]

And you have lan/wifi right?

[dire shuttle]

I'm SSH'd into it over the Internet, so I'm fairly certain yes 🙂

[mild hare]

you can change other settings but just not mqtt?

[dire shuttle]

I... maybe? I tried editing module.proto directly, which somehow reset a bunch of my module stuff and now it seems like it's working?

[mild hare]

oh? Lemme know if that actually works

are you running anything like a bbs?

just wondering if api connection got stomped on

[dire shuttle]

I have mesh_bot, but I stop it before I try to do anything

But yeah, it's dropping pretty regularly anyway for some reason

[nova frost]

Just restarting, or service is stopping?

[dire shuttle]

Not sure yet, I didn't have journalctl up yet at the time

I've definitely got something messed up. Android app shows S+F as disabled, but journalctl shows this:
Tell client we have new packets 42

Unless that's to the phone client

[nova frost]

That's normal - not s&f

I think it's just sync between client and node

[dire shuttle]

Well, sorry, I seem to have jiggled it in just the right way to un-stick whatever the problem is

I tried to set it 10-ish times from the app and a similar number of times from the CLI before asking for help

And from Contact

[mild hare]

just glad you got it sorted

[nova frost]

Chances are that something early on fixed it, but it needed a restart or an oktomqtt packet to work properly.

It be like that ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[hasty bolt]

What stand is this ?

[mild hare]

Something I made last minute and attached a cheap tripod. I can take pictures if you need but it's nothing special. Funny thing, the brand of tripod was "Ubeezee" which when said out loud holds a certain meaning to California Bay Area people (and I happen to be an E-40 fan). Seemed appropriate at the time.

[mild hare]

yup, that one.

[hasty bolt]

Right on

[mild hare]

I spelled it wrong, so meaning is plural. 😆

https://tenor.com/view/e40-tellmewhentogo-gif-21713338

https://a.co/d/caTsXpd

@hasty bolt nothing special just u-bolted the pole mount to the tripod.

[marsh totem]

It's a beauty. Pegs or something heavy to stop it blowing over when deployed?

[lavish sorrel]

https://tenor.com/view/crickets-chirping-joke-not-funny-gif-16248852

[mild hare]

Shhhh

https://tenor.com/view/arnold-schwarzenegger-torch-victory-mud-gif-26707508

[opaque abyss]

I should learn how to make pcbs

Whats one more hobby?

[nova frost]

I mean... OSC is kinda chaining lots of hobbies here... CNC, laser, electronics, car repair, coding...

[quasi onyx]

haha yea

[quartz axle]

dont give me more ideas i already have a 20+ list of pending hobbies

[crude tartan]

I have a remotely placed Femtofox that seems to have completely frozen up. It sends node info once an hour but besides that it doesn't seem to respond to any poking we throw at it. Do y'all think its possible to recover remotely or am I going to have to take a trip up the mountain?

[nova frost]

Does this mean it's not relaying packets?

And has it got noticeably weaker recently?

[crude tartan]

I don't think it's relaying packets at all, but when it sends node info SNR and RSSI are still very good.

[nova frost]

I was going to suggest it may have fallen over...

Does it respond to traceroute or anything?

[crude tartan]

Nope, nothing. I think MeshtasticD might be stuck in a loop. We were spamming it pretty hard because we were testing an interstate link on ShortFast.

[nova frost]

Hmmm. Yes, sounds like it's time for an intervention.

[crude tartan]

Hopefully a daily reboot chronjob will be enough. There's no time for troubleshooting, winter is coming.

[nova frost]

Yeah, that was the fallback suggestion.

[hasty bolt]

Are these boards still for sale ?

[nova frost]

We don't have any ready to go right now. I do plan to get some available soon, but I make no promises.

If you don't need the extra features, we provide the files needed to order the Community Edition version

[hasty bolt]

Ok bet . I got the plate and the stuff to build it off from the parts on the comms gears YouTube video

[crude tartan]

Is there an available 3d model of the FemtoFox CE? I'm trying to make an enclosure and it'd be nice to have.

[mild hare]

That would be a @nova frost question but I believe he is sleeping.

[nova frost]

#1329096340700921898 message

Try that

[nova frost]

Sleep is for the week(end)

[crude tartan]

Thanks! It looks like this is the pro edition, I'm assuming they're dimensionally the same besides the USB port on the side then?

[quasi onyx]

Iirc they are

[nova frost]

Looking forward to a price rise...

[sour horizon]

Or a portapack killer; meshtasticD on a hackRF

Either way; it shouldn’t hurt much

meanwhile Scrooge mc duck is preparing for holiday season with some peeking 🦆

https://tenor.com/view/oliver-twist-1948-please-sir-i-want-some-more-please-sir-i-want-some-more-gif-2228167917865608284

[sour horizon]

Where can I get one!

🥔 now has direct shell x: might be handy

[mild hare]

WIP.

[mild hare]

Hey you can't make a mesh shell too! 🔫 pew pew. J/k. I hope it's leagues beyond mine. Mine was only good for basic stuff.

[sour horizon]

I didn’t I made a bot and added shell access 😉

[mild hare]

@sour horizon Meshrunner is done and just been sitting in github with private on. I really should just make it public so everyone can gut out the pieces they like. My plate runneth over and I probably won't do anything to it until after winter. I think the installer is where I stopped.

I seriously got no time.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1302945239689990185/1335811560823849063/ScreenRecording_20250202_191439.mp4?ex=68e3ddb6&is=68e28c36&hm=db54f128cd893470176716ab5de4c4339ae9314e69e81c432c04521d59444471&

The only time I touched any of this was for Open Sauce.

It's just rotting away.

[sour horizon]

Nice, press it into a custom build for a fox and make the whole thing a hacking game

[mild hare]

I wish. Rn just breaking taps, endmills and contemplating life choices.

[sour horizon]

Potato bot you can now check how tall something is by the shadow it throws, might be handy to keep the head off the platter 😉

[mild hare]

https://tenor.com/view/vault-boy-fallout-thu-thumbs-up-pouce-en-l'air-gif-12872992734180696380

[mild hare]

Been chatting about it in other channels but probably not here. Going between cnc and fiber laser trying to make PCBs at home for femtofox stuff and another project.

Hoping by end of winter have something useful.

[sour horizon]

Got it on pick and place precision yet?

[mild hare]

but no pnp until after tax season

@leaden pine yo

[mild hare]

@sour horizon I'm not always real good at explaining so I just strapped a camera to my chest.

https://youtu.be/zpVMvXMj-aU?si=dk9z9CH000r53EXy

[green hound]

Am I missing out on anything major if I go for the community version? I've never used the luckfox before and I'm looking to start with one of these, but I'm not sure what extra hardware I'd need to access the shell, assuming the one on the luckfox itself doesn't let me do that lol

[nova frost]

The pro has a serial-usb on it, the CE version just breaks out extra pins, so you can bring your own.

All the other things are quality of life things, like slightly more filtering from capacitors and other stuff that would be cost-prohibitive on a batch of 5 boards.

[restive scarab]

I just use an ooooold FTDI cable on my CE (and other Luckfox based) builds, works great when ethernet isn't working for whatever reason to get that sorted

[green hound]

Gotcha! Thank u for the clarification

[green hound]

Sweet, so assuming Ethernet does work, I can just SSH in or w/e?

[mild hare]

yup

[green hound]

Hell yeah

[hushed spruce]

Just to add an FYI - you need to add your own LuckFox to the CE version and enabling the Ethernet port requires soldering a pin header in a slightly tricky spot.

I may or may not have ruined two LuckFox boards before getting it right, but I am probably not great at soldering

[green hound]

Thanks for the heads up!

[mild hare]

I'm at work, but tonight I can upload an stl file for a jig to solder the 4 ethernet pins if it helps

If you are in a hurry I'm pretty sure the stl was uploaded to this channel like 1000 pages up somewhere.

[green hound]

I'm in no rush lol, I haven't ordered the parts yet

Where on the PCB are the pins in question? Doesn't look too bad just from looking at the layout

Unless they're on the pico itself and I'm misunderstanding lol

Oh nvm I see, it's the castellated pins on the back of the luckfox itself. I should be able to manage

[hushed spruce]

If you could upload the jig stl whenever you get a chance, that would be great. I still have a few more Luckfox to solder.

[dire shuttle]

Doing sudo apt update; sudo apt upgrade should update meshtasticd, right?

[nova frost]

Yes, but also running the update in the SFC menu works too

Which is what I do

And am constantly amazed that it works.

[dire shuttle]

It hasn't so far on this node for some reason

[nova frost]

Hmm

[dire shuttle]

It's hard to troubleshoot because running update/upgrade takes hours

[nova frost]

Might have stopped working...

[nova frost]

Over bad internet?

[dire shuttle]

Nope

[nova frost]

Mine takes about 20 minutes

[dire shuttle]

It just takes forever on each step

[nova frost]

I'll fire up a fresh one tonight.

[dire shuttle]

I started the update/upgrade process at 11AM my time and it's now 2PM. It's sitting on Calculating upgrade... Done and I haven't seen anything happen in a while

[sour horizon]

It can be a drag

[mild hare]

somewhere I have a cheat command I use when I install a deb. posted it here before. Not near dev setup but will paste when I am

[dire shuttle]

Is there any easy way to install an alpha onto a Fox? I think I can answer this for myself if I learn more about apt and study the Meshtastic FW distribution pipeline and such, but I still wouldn't be sure, honestly.

[mild hare]

yeah, it's here in the thread somewhere.

[dire shuttle]

I will forward the last forward of it

[mild hare]

☝🏼 I believe

😁

[dire shuttle]

Thanks 🙂

[mild hare]

If there is any collision, maybe check /etc/apt/sources.list to see if old one is there. I'm nowhere near a computer so take it with a grain of salt.

[chrome tide]

It's alive?!!?

[mild hare]

Almost there. Lotta extra when you trying to make the boards yourself.

The software is good.

[brisk ocean]

Edmonton BBS?

[green hound]

That's the plan!

[brisk ocean]

Excellent

[polar ingot]

where are you at? I have a few extra boards and some of the pieces you need to populate them if you havent ordered already

[green hound]

I'm over in Edmonton, AB! I ordered the luckfox boards but haven't ordered any of the femptofox PCBs yet

[polar ingot]

well I have a couple extra PCBs and some of the other required bits if you can solder. now that Canada Post is mostly back up I could pop them in the mail. Send me a PM if youre interested

[green hound]

Will do!

[dire shuttle]

One of my femtofoxen has gone completely unresponsive and now I have to go pull it off a roof 😞

[nova frost]

Oh dear

Report back once it's safe

[sour horizon]

If I let OG apt update I have total loss of ? Everything?

I saw new Armbian builds may be support luckfox soon over at #1302945239689990185

I’m not calling the OG eol but has anyone heard from @fiery finch

Would like to know future plans so I can adapt to them and the new methods

[nova frost]

@mild hare and me were discussing what to do. We've got a couple of options - one of which is simply packaging the current utilities as a .deb and shipping that.

Personally I'd like to see a new build image with the new new.

[nova frost]

I've still got no issues running the latest alpha via the changed repo destination and an update.

I usually use a clean image first, mind.

[sour horizon]

Having to always update the image is a task, a customization deb or something which can plug into armbian builds.

Is maintaining the orginal SKD for the OS worth it?

[mild hare]

I'm already swinging the pickaxe at 2:50am (been months since my dev machine was even on line).

Blackbird already ran armbian. Now that Vid did his miracle all roads meet now. Needs work, but the gate is open.

[mild hare]

I was thinking same, debs and remote scripts. Take the best parts of Foxbuntu and modularize them as addons.

[sour horizon]

Also @forest current

If you haven’t been following

[forest current]

Yeah vid showed me, super cool. Great that we wont be chained to the luckfox sdk anymore and can easily use newer kernels

[dire shuttle]

It came back on before I was able to get up to it. Our weather's been too gross for me to get up on the roof since I noticed it was down. The weird thing is that it was down for at least a sunny day or two

I really need to get an INA on it

[hushed spruce]

Admittedly I am a barely functional discord user but I have not been able to find the stl posts in this topic. Can you please post it again when you get a chance?

[mild hare]

writing on my hand in sharpy now "STL"

[mild hare]

#1302945239689990185 message

[mild hare]

I printed in resin, so your fitment may vary. Worst case use a 1mm drill bit on the holes maybe.

[green hound]

blown away by how tiny this thing actually is, wow

feels even smaller than it looks online when it's actually in my hand

[mild hare]

@green hound I know that feeling

[green hound]

That's crazy small

[mild hare]

it's the opposite of...

[green hound]

[green hound]

what's it do?

[mild hare]

it's an experimental luckfox pico hat @nova frost cooked up one day "tiny fox"

[green hound]

👀

oh damn ok that's a seeed wio footprint

I didn't know it was THAT small

[nova frost]

Yup. I like small nodes.

[restive scarab]

I'm screwed cause I already named my smallfox "zeptofox" 😄

also I realized I'm coming up to 1yr on my Luckfox (got it before the PCBs) and it's been way more solid in that time than I expected for a $10 SBC

[nova frost]

They're disgustingly good value, aren't they?

I can't believe their primary use case before this was for chipping consoles.

[restive scarab]

64MB is good enough for everybody🦊

[mild hare]

https://tenor.com/view/russian-car-vaz-gif-27185015

[twilit mountain]

https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/8797 🙂

[green hound]

assuming ethernet isn't an option, do I specifically need a TTL serial to USB adapter (i.e. Adafruit FTDI Friend) or are there more generic (possibly more accessible) options? I can't find my adapter to save my life rn 😭

If I could use an rp2040 as a USB to UART bridge and have that work then that would be awesome, otherwise back to aliexpress I go

nvm the readme on github literally says to use the UART pins. brain is cooked from work ig

[green hound]

I love paperclips man

[neat frigate]

ouch

[sour horizon]

It’s like all the 🖇️ combined for this one moment

[nova frost]

Paperclip Voltron

[sour horizon]

https://tenor.com/view/paperclip-gif-5149817

[edgy fulcrum]

Anyone know if you can use the usbc port and an adapter to feed in usb and ethernet over it? Or do you have to use the pins https://www.luckfox.com/Luckfox-Pico-Mini-A

[nova frost]

You can use the usb port in ethernet mode, but I've never done that before. If you have a sacrificial cat5/rj45 cable you can chop and solder it to the back pins.

Just using a loose module is rough tho. Do you have a board to mount it on?

[edgy fulcrum]

Not yet im just looking I cant seem to find many docer board for it

I have a 1w node already but I want to use one of the luckfox boards and connect over serial

so all I really need is a docer board with USBa and Ethernet

@nova frost

[nova frost]

I firmly recommend the Femtofox CE board and a usb c-otg adaptor.

You can almost get that combo running with only the bare modules.

[edgy fulcrum]

Whats the CE board?

Thats the one with the lora chip on it right?

[nova frost]

2 secs

https://github.com/femtofox/Femtofox_Community_Hardware

[edgy fulcrum]

Oh okay cool

I might just design a docer board for one of the luxfox boards that has a ethernet and usb

Because I already have an ikoka stick

[edgy fulcrum]

How much are these from JLC?

[nova frost]

Assembled or bare?

Its hard to make a board with usb on for these - usb is only through the connector, so anything you do comes through that - you'll need a hookup of some kind.

I have unreleased versions with usb ports included, but idk how much use they are to anyone but me.

[edgy fulcrum]

Okay cool, Well if I am getting them assembled I would prob get JLC to do most of it and just solder on the SBC. How much is it just for it assembled the 1w version

[nova frost]

You'll have to run the numbers.

I'll put the last 3 on Etsy this weekend if you don't want the faff.

[edgy fulcrum]

For how much?

@nova frost

[nova frost]

I usually list them for £65

[mild hare]

@north plinth I just found this on AliExpress:
$7.46 | LuckFox Pico Mini Linux RV1103 Rockchip Supper MINI AI Board ARM better than Raspberry Pi Pico Development Board
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mtxQMDR

That's who I usually buy from

[north plinth]

thanks

[limber night]

If you order the 128mb flash version, does that mean you can boot from it instead of SD card? And if so. Do you just install the image to it like you would an SD card?

[quasi onyx]

U still need the sdcard

[chrome tide]

128MB is not even remotely large enough for the OS..

I've spend a few months trying to get the NAND accessible from the OS also.. I finally gave up..

I know many others have spent months trying also..

[nova frost]

It might help with swap. Might

[chrome tide]

That would be useful, cuz that's where a lot of the slowness comes from..

[nova frost]

Decent SD card helps, too

[chrome tide]

Yea, I have Samsung Evos in all mine.. Like 130-150MB/s I think.. I thought about getting a Pro w/ 200+MB/s..

[twilit mountain]

In the Armbian builds it's accessible 👍 BUT it's still too small 😅

and you need to wipe it with the rockchip tools before it'll boot off of the SD card

Most I could see it being useful for would be a 128MB SWAP file (should be faster the MicroSD)

[chrome tide]

Yea, that was my idea, I think OSC had that idea also..

[twilit mountain]

The crap part is you really "need" 256MB (RAM + SWAP) to make modern Debian / systemd happy

So 64 + 128 == you still need some swap on the microsd 😅

[chrome tide]

Yea, I found a 256MB NAND, that could be swapped, but it was more than 3 times the cost of the fox..

[twilit mountain]

The longer term answer here is... a board with 256MB of real memory 😅 (RV1106 / RK3506)

Thankfully @nova frost thought of this when he made the femtofox double as a "pi hat"

[nova frost]

All I'm hearing is that I'm not charging enough 😉

[restive scarab]

if you got the NAND working for swap it'd need more in a second swapfile on the sd card, but that'd still be a huge improvement (and much better use than say moving /var/log there, which wouldn't fit anyway even skipping journal/)

[boreal delta]

o/ everyone, I have finished building my first Femtofox.

[quasi onyx]

Dam nice

I do rly want a desktop node with a screen 🤣

[boreal delta]

Thanks! I've yet to wire the thing up though. I was planning on it being a rooftop node but got too attached to the form-factor and overall awesomeness.

[restive scarab]

It s a fantsastic desk node when you get the screen and encoder wired up but gets tight - I ended up with jumpers on the encoder to the seesaw PCB

[chrome tide]

What encoder did you use ?

[boreal delta]

Just a basic generic EC11 encoder with a D-shaft. The knob is a spare 3d printed one from Slabua's V3 remixed case.

[mild hare]

I got a couple i2c ones (overpaid) because of the limited GPIOs on the board.

[boreal delta]

I didn't even figure the GPIO out on portduino yet. It's still "NC". 🙂 Just the screen works atm.

Anyone got a readable GPIO map for LuckFox and how it maps to meshtasticd?

[chrome tide]

I have I2C encoders, thats why I was asking.. I didn't want to have to buy the GPIO expander board.

[nova frost]

https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/wiki/Femtofox-Pinout

[restive scarab]

yeah but on CE ... need UART4 for console so not enough spare pins

[nova frost]

Uart4 is for GPS, uart2 is for console. There's precisely 3 spare pins, two of which are 1.8v and have weird behaviour.

I2c port expander is the way to go.

[boreal delta]

Thanks a lot, my bad, must have missed it. 😵‍💫

[boreal delta]

Will PCF8575 do?

[nova frost]

https://tenor.com/view/no-idea-idk-i-dunno-i-dont-know-no-clue-gif-5178996

If it's in the list of available modules, then yes.

We stripped a lot out.

[restive scarab]

I believe that's the supported one, other way is a dedicated i2c board that definitely works (couple of people have them working) is Adafruit's i2c Seesaw board https://www.adafruit.com/product/5880

[chrome tide]

The I2C encoder is legit, cuz it has a I2C extension port also..

And has 2 LEDs.. 1 is controllable, but not sure is JB has that working yet..

[mild hare]

Late night engine swap experiment

[quasi onyx]

Interesting 😅

[hollow dragon]

aloha -- I see over 95 updates not being applied on my femtofox which is at 1.0. Any updates for the os coming up in the future. Q: is there an alpha meshtasticd for femtofox... still on beta 2.6.11.x i've owned this node for several months. rock solid tech

[nova frost]

There's a command to swap to the alpha repo

Or there may be a beta very shortly... 🤞

[hollow dragon]

yeah just swap out 'beta' with apha-- roger dat... i'm patient for this one

[nova frost]

The os isn't going to be updated - we stripped it back to get the performance up 😄

There's work in the pipeline, but I don't like to interrupt the wizards at work.

[chrome tide]

.

[chrome tide]

The thread disappeared, cuz I wasn't active anymore.. LOL

[nova frost]

Yeah, it happens

[chrome tide]

It's stupid.. If I'm following a thread, it should stay..

[nova frost]

Well, yes and no.

My channel list is cluttered enough as it is.

[chrome tide]

I'm on about 50-60 discord servers, with channels ranging from 20-100 on them.. I know what you mean. But I also hide a bunch of the channels I'm not interested in.

[polar ingot]

My solar node is definitely struggling, maybe I shouldn't update environment telemetry every 3 minutes....

[nova frost]

But if you don't, it might catch fire or submerge, and you won't know about it for another... Interval!

[polar ingot]

Very true, should probably get a bigger battery and panel then eh!

Any idea if anyone if working on the current sensor polarity changing when it goes above/below 300ma? (I think thats the number)

makes the graphs confusing AF

[nova frost]

I thought it was fixed by switching library?

It's been fixed for a while

[polar ingot]

Maybe I missed that?

[nova frost]

I don't have the details on hand, but search back in the release notes.

[polar ingot]

I probably just need to apt update my node then!

[nova frost]

Noooo

Just use the SFC menu item to update it.

Apt update is too long.

[mild hare]

3 mins seems fast. Do you have wifi on?

[polar ingot]

no wifi. but it hasnt gotten to a full charge in a while

[mild hare]

Sorry if you already gave details, but what are you running?

[polar ingot]

smolfox, ra02, bme280 and a fancy INA3221 run from 4x 1800mah lifoP04 cells with a 10w panel and a Lifepowered solar1 charge board

how do we check meshtasticd version again?

i did the update from SFC and seemed to go too fast, but I didnt catch any errors

I think im on alpha branch

[mild hare]

sounds legit

[polar ingot]

(it said I last logged in in july, ive been neglecting meshtastic)

[mild hare]

meshtastic --version

uses python to check meshtasticd

I think this was how lol

oh wait, I think that always just replies portduino v1.0 or something, been a minute and I'm compiling on my desk machine so can't test

[polar ingot]

yeah I dont remember.... i remember there was something specific

that said 2.6.0

[mild hare]

Might be right?

Btw, if I haven't mentioned, working with @twilit mountain on this, will take some time but I'm going for it for these boards.

[twilit mountain]

Jonathan fixed that ❤️

[twilit mountain]

People will also be able to just play with the raw Armbian image when it's released broadly on Nov 20th (@mild hare tick tock we gotta make sure anything we wanna upstream is done before then)

[mild hare]

https://tenor.com/view/airplane-intergalactic-quality-gifs-funny-sweating-reaction-gif-26616287

You did say "raw"

we'll be fine

[twilit mountain]

This is also how I feel, if it makes you feel any better 😛 lol

Cuz when it's released I'm sending it to nerd-tubers

"Look it's a $7 potato, it can Armbian"

[mild hare]

My last sandwich cost more than that

[twilit mountain]

In this context I meant "Mesh not included"

[mild hare]

Fully intending to include a setup for config menus and luxuries like foxbuntu but gonna take a while.
Ok, back to it.

[polar ingot]

so maybe its: '''meshtastic --info'''

[polar ingot]

"firmwareVersion": "2.6.11"

seems old. is there a newer version?

looks like the fix was implimented in Meshtastic Firmware 2.7.10.94d4bdf Alpha

the fix for ina3221 current readings, I should specify

[nova frost]

Sorry, I nodded off.

Yes, it's a shame the fix took so long to get included, tbh.

[polar ingot]

so I need to be on alpha then correct?

and do I want to upgrade anything else other then the sfc upgrade part?

I know running meshtastic --info tells me *** A newer version v2.7.4 is available! Consider running "pip install --upgrade meshtastic" *** at the end

[restive scarab]

easier to upgrade/downgrade meshtastic (non-d) versions with pip ala pip install meshtastic==2.7.1 (or whatever your current meshtastic --version is if 2.7.4 doesn't work)

[polar ingot]

seems my meshing around is no longer working... says its running though

[nova frost]

make sure meshtasticd is running. If the node doesn't have an RTC, it can get annoying when its restarted.

[polar ingot]

systemctl says its running. I dont remember if that node has an rtc, but its connected to ethernet 24-7

Is there a way to test meshbot other then messaging the node or watched channel? it was working as expected before

oh hey, meshbot isnt running now... hmm

but seems to start fun with systemctl

ok, mesh_bot dies, need to check logs

Nov 12 08:34:32 femtofoxhome systemd[1]: Started MESH-BOT. Nov 12 08:34:34 femtofoxhome python3[646]: Traceback (most recent call last): Nov 12 08:34:34 femtofoxhome python3[646]: File "/opt/meshing-around/mesh_bot.py", line 14, in <module> Nov 12 08:34:34 femtofoxhome python3[646]: from modules.log import logger, CustomFormatter, msgLogger, getPrettyTime Nov 12 08:34:34 femtofoxhome python3[646]: File "/opt/meshing-around/modules/log.py", line 3, in <module> Nov 12 08:34:34 femtofoxhome python3[646]: import modules.settings as my_settings Nov 12 08:34:34 femtofoxhome python3[646]: File "/opt/meshing-around/modules/settings.py", line 136, in <module> Nov 12 08:34:34 femtofoxhome python3[646]: config.write(open(config_file, 'w')) Nov 12 08:34:34 femtofoxhome python3[646]: PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'config.ini' Nov 12 08:34:34 femtofoxhome systemd[1]: mesh_bot.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE Nov 12 08:34:34 femtofoxhome systemd[1]: mesh_bot.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

probably that permission problem

[polar ingot]

the ol'uninstall -> reinstall did the trick

[nova frost]

https://tenor.com/view/first-time-meme-movie-james-cameron-western-gif-17538858

[sour horizon]

Doh! Sorry about that

[nova frost]

I have listed my last spare Femtofoxen

https://tenor.com/view/bon-courage-good-luck-salute-kiss-you-can-do-it-gif-18108726281817376848

[sour horizon]

What’s this mean, I’m worried

Can we no longer fox about

I just got fitted for a new tale

[mild hare]

I been out of stock for months too. Just means gotta be CE boards. And we working on Armbian for it and options to swap out pico with other stuff too.

[nova frost]

It means I ordered a small batch, and various people have taken them off my hands privately

last ones in this batch are on the open market

[lavish sorrel]

So wait, does that mean Femtofox Pro isn't going to be produced anymore? like RIP?

[mild hare]

I havent ordered in months. Was kinda waiting on tariffs to not be 1/3. Tom just ran out and I think @quasi onyx might be out? Maybe not Not saying RIP, project still goes on but I dont think anyone has any right now.

[mild hare]

I guess the easy way to answer is not EOL, working on new OS to squeeze everything we can and also support other SBCs (because of 40 pin pi header). So taking a bit but trying to give these some extra life and options.

[mild hare]

on the 40 pin header meant stuff like this. Was able to wrench a banana pi m2 on one with a couple junpers for usb-c serial and had it at 0.47w at idle (with wifi on, but again, AT IDLE). So experiments are happening. Nothing solid yet. Other luckfoxen are in the crosshairs too.

To be clear, LOTS of hacking was done to get power that low

[quasi onyx]

Toms sending me some but I've sold the all i think

Id have to check

Maybe i have 1 unsold

[mild hare]

Endangered species due to new "regulations".

[sour horizon]

Squirt it thru as development samples

[quasi onyx]

And increase in prices as tom found out

[restive scarab]

so... they're appreciating instead of depreciating?? 😄

[opaque abyss]

I always appreciate my femtofox

[nova frost]

like a beanie baby

[restive scarab]

never hopped on that bandwagon, still to the moon on these cabbage patch dolls

[nova frost]

I put my savings into Labubus. They creep me out, but I feel good knowing I'm going to be rich.

[fervent pier]

FemtoFox still runs like a champ in my truck! Maybe we'll see a resurrence when tariffs figure themselves out?

[fervent pier]

Is there a room for this project?

[polar ingot]

I mean CE boards aren't that hard to get made.... and cheap when you're in Canada eh.

[mild hare]

But you gotta stop saying it outloud or @surreal iron and I will end up pulled over at the Canadian border in an RV full of JLCPCB boxes.

[mild hare]

Sorta? On another server with less than a handful of people and most of the time it's PMs. Still early in. Holidays coming up so hopefully get some good stuff done.

[surreal iron]

I am strongly considering setting up a “business” in White Rock, BC.

[mild hare]

https://tenor.com/view/star-wars-empire-strikes-back-han-solo-facepalm-gif-3881735644420460608

[surreal iron]

I’m going to name my boat the Millennium Falcon. It can do the Vancouver to Eureka run in less than 12 parsecs.

[nova frost]

https://tenor.com/view/boat-boating-banshee-mercury-fast-gif-11351314

Insert cartel music

[nova frost]

Ah, that's the stuff!

Although these days it's more like "all you had to do was follow the train, CJ!"

[mild hare]

Hey that mission was hard

[nova frost]

I actually cheated in the end. If you put a superbike nearby, it's got enough speed to keep up.

[mild hare]

https://tenor.com/view/good-think-thinking-smart-wise-gif-10074958

[twilit mountain]

@leaden vale 🙂 in here

[leaden vale]

thank you , ill take a read

[chrome tide]

.

[chrome tide]

thread disappeared again..

[nova frost]

I got busy

No-one needed help

You got busy!

[chrome tide]

I'm more depressed, than busy.. Still struggling w/ the search..

[quasi onyx]

weeeeee

[nova frost]

Ah, understandable.

Did you solder up that wifi module to the usb connector I sent?

[chrome tide]

Wife made me put everything away for the holidays.. :\ So wasn't able to get it done. It's first thing on the list once I can get my solder setup back out..

[topaz bolt]

Hello.
How to enable sx1268 ebyte?

[nova frost]

In what arrangement?

You have the 433mhz version?

[topaz bolt]

@nova frost yes

1w 433 mhz

[nova frost]

I can't remember the bit to add to the yaml. If you ask in #meshtasticd someone will know

[chrome tide]

Where can I grab Armbian for luckfox pico mini ?

[mild hare]

So it's not setup like foxbuntu was. But if you build armbian from official armbian github and select community supported builds you will see luckfox-pico-mini. Only minimal console build works. It's raw linux so be warned. This is not for most people and dont ask me questions about it (yet).

[chrome tide]

You might be able to ask me about it once I can find it.. LOL

[chrome tide]

What version should I be grabbing ?

I grabbed Armbian_community_26.2.0-trunk.22_Luckfox-pico-mini_trixie_vendor_6.1.115_minimal

[mild hare]

https://github.com/armbian/build

[chrome tide]

Yea, that's where I grabbed the above from.. I'm asking which version should I grab..

Well sorry, from here.. https://github.com/armbian/community

If I goto build/releases it's just the source to build my own image, and I don't want to do that..

I want to be able to download a pre-built image..

[mild hare]

Just use front door I linked, when it asks what board, go to community supported ones. Noble or Trixie work and use console minimal.

[mild hare]

this may not be for you then.

[chrome tide]

I don't see anywhere that it asks what board. or an option for community supported ones..

[chrome tide]

why would it not be for me if I just want to be able to download a .img file, and flash it, then build out what is needed for the board ? I said I don't want to have to build the .img file. I'm not asking for an image like foxbuntu with all the stuff pre-installed.

[mild hare]

It may not have all the things you need in the kernel.

[chrome tide]

Like ?

[mild hare]

When I get near my dev machine I can get you an image, but I doubt you will like it and I wont help

[chrome tide]

If there is docs explaining what needs to be done, I can do it.. I just don't have a system that can build armbian, unless I spin up a VM for it.

[mild hare]

it's raw and wip still.

Not trying to be douchy, but being honest that it's not ready and I'm about to grab tools and tell pg&e to kma, so not in dev mode. But I'll get you an image.

Hang on, just remembered I have back to home and no machine up.

[chrome tide]

No worries

It was more to test wifi w/ everything running, since it crashes on foxbuntu..

[mild hare]

Will have a gdrive link to pm ya in a minute.

[chrome tide]

np

[mild hare]

Only tips I'll give ya, you NEED to first boot with a serial terminal to complete armbian setup, and generate locales ONLY if you are about to go to bed.

@chrome tide image link pm'ed

[sour horizon]

Is the femtofox GitHub still choochin’ will there be a rebuild with 2.7 rolled in? Or is it gonna fade out?

What happened to @fiery finch

It’s been like a year since I see a post

I’m worried

[mild hare]

nagu is fine.
New OS will replace Foxbuntu.

Foxbuntu repo will stay for posterity.

[mild hare]

Meshtastic time is not real time.

Not planning to release an image of Foxbuntu for a meshtastic update.

@sour horizon basically my time is best served building a better OS that can almost "live forever".

Thanks to @twilit mountain it will have auto builds and not rely on human intervention. We need this.

[chrome tide]

weekly .

[polar ingot]

pong

[cinder parrot]

Sorry if I missed this somewhere, but can the Femtofox handle multiple power sources being used simultaneously? E.g. running primarily on PoE, but also having an MPPT plugged into the 5v in JST slot for battery and solar backup?
My searching confirmed that it has both options, but couldn't find anything about both being used together.

Femtofox Pro v1.1, to be more specific.

[quasi onyx]

Afaik theres no poe ATM

Would have to split it

[cinder parrot]

Yeah, I'd plan on splitting it and using the USB C.

[quasi onyx]

Not sure if u can power from both

[nova frost]

I'd suggest putting a proper power solution in front of it, and powering it from a single source.

The 5vin and the usb-c are on a single rail, and the protection is mostly around ESD rather than surges and sags.

[cinder parrot]

Understood, thank you!

[cinder parrot]

Any potential ETA on a new OS? 🙂

[nova frost]

@twilit mountain when you have a minute 🙂

[cinder parrot]

I'm trying and failing to get 2.6.11 on a Femtofox in the meantime, since the upgrade/install option in PuTTY only seems to be grabbing the newest beta firmware (2.7.15).

[twilit mountain]

Unfortunately PPA only keeps the latest version in each repo 😢 the 2.6.11 build has been lost to time

[cinder parrot]

Sad day. 🫤 Is there another way to flash the older firmware somehow? Or just gotta sit tight for a newer OS?

[twilit mountain]

The new betas should still be built for jammy 😮 don't need a new OS (though I'm working on that!)

[cinder parrot]

So, it succeeds in upgrading meshtasticd to 2.7.15, but then it fails to run it at all. Unless I'm doing something wrong, which is very likely haha

[twilit mountain]

Got any log output for us? 🙏 journalctl -u meshtasticd

Cuz it should work, maybe something silly in the configs?

[cinder parrot]

I just reflashed the SD card, so I'll try it all again and see what I can grab for you.

[nova frost]

I was pinging to ask if armbian is ready yet 😉

[twilit mountain]

Got distracted setting up meshtastic build runners / fixing the manifest stuff 😅

My attention will return don't worry

[mild hare]

Same. Got some construction going on home. Big solar node lol.

[chrome tide]

lost again.. :\

[nova frost]

have you soldered the thing yet?

[chrome tide]

No, but I've already told the wife day after xmas, I am..

I just finished up a LED snow flake prop for her today..

[quasi onyx]

Lol

[nova frost]

If I make another batch of these, will there be any takers?

[shrewd turtle]

heck yes!

[shrewd turtle]

Contributing some foxes for you

[nimble wraith]

Yes, but I’m in the US 😭

[nova frost]

I will ship to the US

it will cost...

but I do ship

[nimble wraith]

Good to know 😄

[quasi onyx]

Yes

It costs

I mean i have 1 fox in Finland if anyone interested lol

Will ship it but it costs too lol

[shrewd turtle]

fly over, see northern lights, picck up a fox, sounds like a good time 🙂

[quasi onyx]

Would be cheaper to ship lol

[cinder parrot]

But less fun 😅

[quasi onyx]

True lol