Femtofox - Tiny, low power Linux node!

[mild hare]

Bought 4 more since and working on many pico minis as I dev

Gottem at official SanDisk Amazon store

[chrome tide]

Didn't you have commands to mount the partitions on another linux system ?

[polar ingot]

Mine is a 64gb SanDisk HE from the sandisk amazon store

so I think its a good card

[mild hare]

ah chroot

Sorry got sidetracked

Pure debian, no android

Reading LUKS guide now

[chrome tide]

Can you chroot if the SD card doesn't boot anymore ?

[mild hare]

Oooh good point

Dude finding the offsets in foxbuntu was a nightmare. I have them somewhere but not handy.

[chrome tide]

dwhacks needs to fsck the card..

[mild hare]

Yeah and cuz foxbuntu is not a gpt partition you can't just pop it into a machine and just fsck it

[polar ingot]

exactly

friggin womp womp

[mild hare]

And I don't got offsets close by 😢

[polar ingot]

oh well. I guess Ill re-image it at some point

[mild hare]

I think in the python tool we used to write the ssd's in the GitHub may have it. I can take a quick look

[chrome tide]

I'm telling you, use Win32DiskImager to take a back up of the card. There is a way to mount img file, if you get the offsets of the partitions..

[mild hare]

Mpwrd-os doesn't have this problem. Just slot it and has a real fs

[polar ingot]

yeah,

im ready for mpwrd-os!

[chrome tide]

Time to switch to mPWRD-OS.. ;P

So far so good for me, other than missing net-tools, i2c-tools, and vim..

[polar ingot]

so no sensors?

[mild hare]

https://github.com/mPWRD-OS/mPWRD-OS/releases/tag/v0.1.0

[mild hare]

Have not tested sensors but I think it works? i2c-tools is just for debugging

[polar ingot]

10-4

I will be testing this, haha

[mild hare]

use apt-get not apt. Slightly faster

[chrome tide]

Nah, my BME280 works, just no way to check i2c..

[polar ingot]

roger

[chrome tide]

Hmm... So I installed i2c-tools last night, but still getting this.

will@luckfox-pico-mini:~$ i2cdetect
-bash: i2cdetect: command not found

[polar ingot]

Ski hills last day is tomorrow, and then I just have to finish shut down, and I'll be done managing 30 employees and back with some free time for projects

[shrewd turtle]

i think another tip, is to stop meshtasticd before apt operations, any bit of extra free ram helps (that isn't getting swapped to sdcard)

[nova frost]

There should be an upgrade option in mpwrd-config that does this for you

[polar ingot]

is there a specific place to talk about mpwrd?

It detected my timezone wrong, like not THAT wrong, but kinda wrong lol. I feel like it should detect it, say "is this correct" and give you the option to change. Just a little first boot feedback

[chrome tide]

mpwrd-menu should let you change it, but it's setup during initial boot when you create your root password, and local user..

[chrome tide]

Anyone tried one of these ? https://www.amazon.com/DWEII-Lithium-Battery-Charger-Converter/dp/B0DCVRXTW8/

[nova frost]

Not that one but I got something better

[chrome tide]

Wth is that ? ;P

[quasi onyx]

hmmmmm

[nova frost]

Solar charger, ups etc.

All the things™

Works off rechargeable or non-rechargeable

[chrome tide]

I can see that. But what is it called ? Where can someone get it ?

[nova frost]

4.5-24.5 vin

[nova frost]

My Etsy, when delivered..

[chrome tide]

When and where ? ;P

[quasi onyx]

lol

[nova frost]

Shouldn't be more th an a week

[chrome tide]

store link ?

NVM, found it in pinned messages

[quasi onyx]

lol

[chrome tide]

Femtofox Pro v1.7 now, wow..

[nova frost]

Yee

[nova frost]

Also in my profile 😛

[chrome tide]

It's all fancy w/ interchangable radio modules now..

What is the mikrobus-compatible pcb ?

I also see a PoE 2-pin JST, how do you use that ?

[quasi onyx]

u need a poe module

[chrome tide]

Ah

[chrome tide]

Got an estimated price for the board ?

[nova frost]

£25 plus tariffs, postage and packaging

[chrome tide]

So 50ish USD ?

[nova frost]

So probably like $120 🤪

I'd suggest buying a few pieces to cut down on cost

Dare I suggest finding some like minded friends?

[chrome tide]

Maybe SoCal Mesh ppl will be interested..

[quasi onyx]

heh

[chrome tide]

I would need a link w/ product details most likely to get anyone on board tho..

[quasi onyx]

i am like minded 🙃

[chrome tide]

You aren't in the US tho.. ;P

[quasi onyx]

aahaha

i know

[chrome tide]

@nova frost There are 2 battery JSTs, are both used at the same time ? But the backup is activated after main dies ?

[nova frost]

Yes

We use a lot of li-socl2 cells

[chrome tide]

What are those ? Never heard of them..

Hmm.. Chloride battery..

[nova frost]

Lithium primary cells

Long shelf life

[sour horizon]

Can I input my steam turbine? It outputs 73v

[quasi onyx]

lol

[chrome tide]

What rechargeable batteries do you recommend for it ?

[chrome tide]

Buck it down, and should be fine.. ;P

[nova frost]

18650

😛

[chrome tide]

21700 ? ;P

[quasi onyx]

21700

:)

[nova frost]

Anyway, they use li-socl2 are used in smoke detectors. They got high internal resistance, hence the need for a supercap

[quasi onyx]

mmmm

[chrome tide]

My smoke detectors use 120v..

They are Nest Protects tho, so..

[quasi onyx]

dont they have a battery backup tho

[nova frost]

Maybe not...

[quasi onyx]

usually they have if its mains powered

[nova frost]

Well, those 10 year ones that are retrofit use them.

Anyway, we digress

I wouldn't run a fox off li-socl2

[chrome tide]

They do but I think it's Lipo

[nova frost]

But I would perhaps consider using that input for e.g. another 5v source like an Anker or something

There was an old request for a poe-backed solar node...

Which I thought was interesting, but I guess if you want to try solar but not commit.

[quasi onyx]

hah

[chrome tide]

If it's going on my house, I would pref PoE, since I can run a network cable to it, and be done.. I have PoE switches..

[nova frost]

Well, v1.7 has a socket that has the rectifiers for Poe built in.

But not the transformer.

So bring a silvertel or something and you're probably good to go

[chrome tide]

You making a PoE board for it next ? ;P

[nova frost]

Can't be arsed.

They're a pain.

[chrome tide]

LOL

[nova frost]

COTS is easier and cheaper

But a nice, efficient charger board is hard to find.

The tedious part of Poe is the detection and negotiation.

[chrome tide]

Yea

[quasi onyx]

just leave poe to the big gues

[nova frost]

It's possible to make a small, "real" Poe converter, or a small one that works on fake power injection, but doing both is really hard.

[quasi onyx]

yea

[chrome tide]

So which silvertel is recommended ?

[nova frost]

Like, there are negotiation chips and stuff, but switching between 60v and 5v and bootstrapping it all...

Well, the charger board will take up to 24v

So any of them?

[chrome tide]

That doesn't really help. I looked and don't see any that would be plug n play..

[nova frost]

As Iris will tell you, the naked boards are a bit finicky - they demand huge bulk caps on their output.

[quasi onyx]

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Silvertel/AG5405?qs=stqOd1AaK79%2Fxd5F96tfEA%3D%3D

can do like 30W at 5V but requires external components

that too lol

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/jO3cxS.png

u need to add these

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Silvertel/Ag97005-FL?qs=jcD%2FCkGBYeP9k9cGX%252B5wng%3D%3D
this one has them onboard but can do max like 13W or so

[nova frost]

I included that

[quasi onyx]

u still need a cap

[chrome tide]

Do you need more than 13w for a 1W mesh node ?

[nova frost]

No

[quasi onyx]

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/wKDxkL.png

ah 9W ant 5V

so uh

[nova frost]

I might make an equivalent of the meshmess but for power.

There's too many options.

Put a 90V efuse on the front and just let you plug in whatever you like.

Poe+++? Fake Poe? Solar? Car 24v output? I can probably manage those.

[quasi onyx]

yup

[nova frost]

5.5x2.5 and 5.5x2.1...

Usb-c

Micro usb?

Screw terminals...

[quasi onyx]

solder pads

wire nuts

[shrewd turtle]

QI power when?

[nova frost]

I could probably build that into the pcb

[quasi onyx]

its just copper coil and some ic and passives

could be fun i guess

[nova frost]

Just make the switching loop stupid big...

🤪

Free qi charger

[quasi onyx]

yup

i do acutually have a wirelless charger thingy i bought from ali

[chrome tide]

SOOO So far, mPWRD-OS is solid when it comes to this wifi NIC I am using.. No KPs, or anything so far..

Is there a mPWRD-OS thread somewhere ?

[sour horizon]

You in it

[quasi onyx]

lol

[nova frost]

Presumably when it leaves preview-pre-alpha-prototyping it'll get yet another channel

[mild hare]

Issues in mpwrd-os and pmwrd-menu probably help us the most for now. I am supposed to be doing docs n stuff but life keeps finding a way to sidetrack me.

[sour horizon]

I wanna see more details

Like when I go to radio config I don’t know what state it’s in

[mild hare]

A related sidetrack though, this Mobian phone is a life/development changing tool.

[mild hare]

Throw in an issue in mpwrd-menu, I like the idea.

[nova frost]

I had a quick play before - the new menu is wicked fast.

I need to work out how to get the RTC working.

[mild hare]

Yeah, on my to-do list too.

[sour horizon]

I tried to set the time zone the other day and fell asleep waiting for it

[mild hare]

You mean locales? I did mention that

[sour horizon]

just the time zone haha

[mild hare]

Woah, never had that happen.

[sour horizon]

must be your fancy SD card

[mild hare]

Autodetect timezone should be like instant if network is up.

[sour horizon]

Oh sure I just been skipping it

Just add a gps dongle

Ftf-pro-g

[polar ingot]

So, with this new latest/greatest OS, i see theres mpwrd-menu, but I don't see anything in there for setting channels, or sensors or channel/config url. is this all to be done the CLI way?

[mild hare]

Contact, first choice in the menu

[polar ingot]

I thought that was the messaging interface

[sour horizon]

It would be cool if the menu had basic config like name and such

[mild hare]

Does config as well, I think F12?

[polar ingot]

Ok, Ill have a look

yes, f12

[mild hare]

I have mpwrd-config repo too, got put aside for clean menu first

[polar ingot]

I feel like the the femtobuntu somehow have a config that was basically exactly this contact config without the messaging part

anyway, seems faster so far....

[mild hare]

Bleeding edge, like we basically leaked it while we work on it

[mild hare]

This was exactly the case

[polar ingot]

10-4

its cool so far

gonna see if I can load a previous saves config file...

[mild hare]

Um. Careful.

[polar ingot]

also, exiting contact seems to take for.ev.er

[mild hare]

True, @fast adder mentioned a bug they know about

I use the android client over the network to config usually

[polar ingot]

if the config was saved from contact on a foxbuntu node, it should maybe work?

[mild hare]

Oh for contact? Maybe, I have no clue.

[polar ingot]

couple more questions.....
how to enable i2c sensors?

and do you know where contact wants the config saved? home folder?

[mild hare]

I'm not super fluent with Contact. That's @fast adder baby.

[mild hare]

@chrome tide had his bme280 working out the gate. There is a config in /etc/meshtasticd/config.d that should have i2c enabled for meshtasticd.

Lemme know whatever you find, I'm spread pretty thin.

Any/all findings help

[chrome tide]

Not out the gate, you have to uncomment the I2C device line.. Or use a config file to do it..

 cat /etc/meshtasticd/config.d/femtofox_i2c.yaml
 I2C:
 #  I2CDevice: /dev/i2c-1
  I2CDevice: /dev/i2c-3

I enable webserver also, but I'm sure that's using a bunch of resources.. LOL

[mild hare]

I swears there is a stand alone yaml that does that but I trust ya

[polar ingot]

Oh fun. well, im still waiting for contact to close....

[mild hare]

Mash ctrl-c like it owes you $

[polar ingot]

last time that didnt work.... I closed the terminal and re-sshed

feel like thats a whoopsies though

[mild hare]

Oh that reminds me. Trying to be very gentle on resources but tmux is something I feel like I can't live without

[polar ingot]

mashing ctrl-c doesn this also

mPWRD-menu
============

Main Menu
Lightweight TUI for mPWRD-OS.

 > Contact
   Meshtastic Related Services
   meshtasticd Repository
   Mesh Apps Manager
   Network Quick Start
   Board Config
   Exit

Arrows or j/k to move, Enter to select, q to go back.
Launching contact...


^C^CTraceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/pipx/venvs/contact/lib/python3.13/site-packages/contact/__main__.py", line 153, in start
    interface_state.interface.close()
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/opt/pipx/venvs/contact/lib/python3.13/site-packages/meshtastic/tcp_interface.py", line 80, in close
    super().close()
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/opt/pipx/venvs/contact/lib/python3.13/site-packages/meshtastic/stream_interface.py", line 139, in close
    self._rxThread.join()  # wait for it to exit
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/threading.py", line 1094, in join
    self._handle.join(timeout)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^
KeyboardInterrupt

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/contact", line 6, in <module>
    sys.exit(start())
             ~~~~~^^
  File "/opt/pipx/venvs/contact/lib/python3.13/site-packages/contact/__main__.py", line 156, in start
    interface_state.interface.close()
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/opt/pipx/venvs/contact/lib/python3.13/site-packages/meshtastic/tcp_interface.py", line 80, in close
    super().close()
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/opt/pipx/venvs/contact/lib/python3.13/site-packages/meshtastic/stream_interface.py", line 139, in close
    self._rxThread.join()  # wait for it to exit
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/threading.py", line 1094, in join
    self._handle.join(timeout)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^
KeyboardInterrupt```

[chrome tide]

It's in the config.yaml.. I just make my own config for it, so updates don't complain about me making changes to config.yaml.. LOL

[mild hare]

It's never graceful when you force exit

[chrome tide]

That's expected, your killing the PID, so it spits out trash.

[polar ingot]

yeah, it let me back into the pwrd menu

[chrome tide]

Well not killed the PID, but force closed via ctrl-c

I have this file also..

cat /etc/meshtasticd/config.d/femto_config.yaml
# this sets the mac address source to eth0, replacing the previous code that derived a seed from the CPU s/n.
# of course, eth0 also has its mac address derived from CPU s/n, but this way meshtastic uses the exact mac address, instead of a bastardized version converted to a 9 digit int with `| bc | tail -c -9`.
General:
  MACAddressSource: eth0

# this activates the webserver
Webserver:
  Port: 443 # Port for Webserver & Webservices
  RootPath: /usr/share/meshtasticd/web # Root Dir of WebServer
  SSLKey: /etc/meshtasticd/ssl/private_key.pem # Path to SSL Key, generated if>
  SSLCert: /etc/meshtasticd/ssl/certificate.pem # Pa

[polar ingot]

Oh, and theres no i2c-tools to check the bus?

[mild hare]

No but we'll include it later images

For now apt-get it

[polar ingot]

seems my old config from contact loaded in just fine

[chrome tide]

Even doing that, it doesn't seem to work..

[mild hare]

I used it a week or two ago working on rtc.

[chrome tide]

Hmmm..... When I type i2c and hit tab, nothing comes up. But if I do it on my other femto running fembuntu, it does..

I've even typed the full command, and says not found.

But if I try to install it again, it says its already installed..

[mild hare]

Hang on, sshed into a femto and installing

[fast adder]

I forget, but if you export a config, it'll tell you the path that it uses.

[fast adder]

We did have a somewhat parallel repo for a while called "Control". It was the same menu minus the App Settings option. I ended up just archiving that repo but you can still launch the config menu without the chat stuff using contact -c

[mild hare]

I had no idea!

[fast adder]

• --settings, --set, --control, -c: Launch directly into the settings.

[mild hare]

That's right! Saw while porting old femto-config into mpwrd-config

@fast adder btw the exit is pretty brutal lately even with zero nodes in db

Gets better after use though

[fast adder]

I’ll take a look. It actually closes the connection now. I added that not too long ago. Might be what’s hanging.

[mild hare]

Like maybe it's just first load? I nuke and do fresh images so often I'm a bad judge of it.

[mild hare]

Bruh, problem

export PATH="$PATH:/usr/sbin"

Dunno how the hell this happened

@twilit mountain /usr/sbin is not in path. Worried an extension stomped it. Heads-up

Prolly my fault

[chrome tide]

This is kinda important...... No ? LOL

[mild hare]

Paste that and good to go. Holy hell.

[chrome tide]

Might be better to add it to the bashrc file, or even /etc/profile

[mild hare]

This wasn't a problem couple weeks ago

Will find out what happened after I read William Gibson to the princes of chaos.

[chrome tide]

I would have figured it out, just been dealing with a migraine the last couple days..

[chrome tide]

The issue is in /etc/profile..

# /etc/profile: system-wide .profile file for the Bourne shell (sh(1))
# and Bourne compatible shells (bash(1), ksh(1), ash(1), ...).

if [ "$(id -u)" -eq 0 ]; then
  PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"
else
  PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games"
fi
export PATH

The else path is what I am getting at least..

will@luckfox-pico-mini:~$ printenv | grep PATH
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

[mild hare]

@chrome tide mystery solved I think. Pretty sure we just newbed out. When I was using it weeks was using sudo. Armbian adds /usr/sbin path to root user but not normal users.

[chrome tide]

Pretty much.. But if you change the else PATH, to include that path, you will be good. That's what I did..

[mild hare]

So functioning as intended by the deities upstream.

[polar ingot]

I watched Predetor Badlands and contact didnt quit..... really needs ctrl-c

contact -c also seems to hang on close, and this is the error (no ctrl-c):Fatal error: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'close' Traceback (most recent call last): File "/opt/pipx/venvs/contact/lib/python3.13/site-packages/contact/__main__.py", line 153, in start interface_state.interface.close() ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'close'

[chrome tide]

It def needs to be fixed, upstreamers can be ID10Ts sometimes.. ;P

[polar ingot]

anyone install meshing-around on mpwrd yet?

[restive scarab]

alright I did custom build adding RTL8188EUS and seems to be working fine on lyra zero w, opening issue requesting it be enabled

the onboard wifi would be more ideal obviously, but this at least gets some more usb chipsets that people are likely to have on their existing builds

also may wanna try and trap ctrl-c during that first boot - ended up having rx/tx swapped and after sorting out seemed hung so starting spamming it and just speedrunning my way to a shell, which was fine for me but most users want the nice and quick setup wizard

[fast adder]

maybe found something. When you have a moment, update to 1.5.5 and let me know if that solves it for ya.

[chrome tide]

I think Imma install nightly on my mPWRD-OS femtofox.. Running beta right now..

I think Imma shutdown the web server also..

[mild hare]

This Linux phone is amazing. And contact -c is dope and exits instantly

[mild hare]

Rtl8188eus was included I thought, crap will check. I have many of these.

[mild hare]

@sour horizon has

But was work with all the deps. Think he may have an image.

[chrome tide]

Missing lshw also

With how slow apt/apt-get is, I don't want to have to install commonly used tools..

[mild hare]

Yeah dude for real. But we gotta be careful to do just the most general stuff all our meshers use. So smash in issues so we got a list to look at. There's a handful we need for sure

[chrome tide]

I already added it to my issue #60.. ;P

Included details about i2c-tools also..

regarding path

[mild hare]

So that path thing is just a reminder to use sudo on tools that need sudo?

I'll look though to be sure.

[chrome tide]

LOL really ? sudo doesn't add a path to the user's PATH..

[mild hare]

No but it accesses the root's PATH

[chrome tide]

I'll test it after this install is completed to make sure..

To be fair, here is the path from Fembuntu.. PATH=/home/femto/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin

So /usr/sbin is included in that one..

[chrome tide]

Eh, I'm heading to bed.. apt-get is taking a long time to do this install..

[nova frost]

Which one? His early stuff is kinda 15+

[shrewd turtle]

RL8188EUS, do you know if thats thr driver used for these guys https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08F2ZNC6J?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_3 ?

looks like they may be case

giving up on ac1200, it just doesn't work well, can't scan most of time, and driver needs too much consecutive memory

i don't need AC on a device who's ultimately going to be deployed outside 😛

[sour horizon]

@polar ingot I didnt press it onto a download yet but there is a how to/fork at the moment.

https://github.com/spudgunman/mPWRD-OS

[sour horizon]

I didn’t preload but this same image will “easy run” TC2 etc as well

Just git clone stuff

If there is need I can run an action so there is a .image vs a “compile”

Was slacking to see what changes might happen

I do feel, learning to build this image far outweighs waiting for the little device to try and figure it out on its own, Ubuntu VM in open box will do it easy

[restive scarab]

not 100% but pretty sure that is, if you plug it into a linux box lsusb should show RTL8188EUS device even if the kernel doesn't have module for it. the one I'm using is a 2.4GHz tp-link.

[chrome tide]

We really need lshw installed. I ran this command and got the driver info.. sudo lshw -C network
driver=mt76x0u

The NIC I'm using is the Panda Wireless PAU0B

[chrome tide]

This info is from the product desc..

**UPDATED VERSION** Featuring new generation of N150 Wi-Fi 4 adapter powered by RTL8188EUS

[chrome tide]

You're right, it does pull root path when using sudo. But i2cdetect doesn't need to be ran as root, so..

[polar ingot]

exits properly from the mpwrd menu and contact -c now! still not snappy, but thats to be expected on this hardware I would assume

[fast adder]

nice! thanks for the update.

[polar ingot]

i run arch btw lol

[sour horizon]

I only have a fork for the existing project

So arch or whatever, Debian might build well from Debian is the advice is

[polar ingot]

It can do it with docker acording to armbian, so doing that

it was more just a chance to use the "i use arch btw" meme.....

[sour horizon]

I can press build on GitHub if it would be handy

[polar ingot]

I agree with you that learning to build the image is a great plan. I'm cool with that

[sour horizon]

If you have a good PC it’s under 20min and I feel like apt update takes that long

[polar ingot]

"good" pc..... Thinkpad t480. nothing special but should handle it

its chuggin along

add this to the reasons I really like the femtofox. more learning!

weeeeeeeeee

I should probably dig deeper. would be fun to have pre-configured builds for each of my nodes with their settings...

[quasi onyx]

interesting

[restive scarab]

looks like the kernel cfg is missing dallas/maxim RTCs, building now with aic8800dc support to see if I can get the lyra zero w onboard wifi/bt going

[chrome tide]

Yea, I dont think my RTC is working on my mPWRD-OS device.

[restive scarab]

it shows up in the i2c scan though right?

[chrome tide]

Yes

I see 3 i2c devices when it scans..

It being meshtasticd

[polar ingot]

39 minutes on this little thinkpad

[polar ingot]

here we go. booting the new built image!

[shrewd turtle]

silly question, but whats the usecase for requiring a rtc in these devices?

[sour horizon]

I vote use gpsd

Keeps time on logs and .. I’m not sure Ethernet ntp was working last I tested in firmware but

Also keeps time in mesh

If you use stuff in the internet time is needed somehow so it’s the biggest .. reason to keep time?

[nova frost]

Primarily because Meshtasticd crashes if the computer time shifts more than about 3 weeks while it's running...

And because pinodes were the source of bad time to the point they changed the time algorithm.

[shrewd turtle]

damn...it can drift 3 weeks?

i mean, that can happen if clocks resets to some default time after reboot, then gets ntp'ed to correct time

[nova frost]

No, the RTC shouldn't drift, but if Meshtasticd starts before it establishes network time then things go sideways.

[restive scarab]

also what happens when your node doesn't have network?

[nova frost]

RTC prevents that.

[nova frost]

It tells time by checking the the position of the sun and the colour of the leaves.

https://tenor.com/view/fall-back-time-change-spinning-clock-turn-the-clock-back-clocks-gif-12827256

[sour horizon]

welcome to the twilight zone

[restive scarab]

but what if it's raining, does that mean time no longer exists?

[sour horizon]

At long as it moves forward it’s going back and catching back up with realtime again

[nova frost]

https://tenor.com/view/time-has-no-meaning-anymore-daniel-shiffman-the-coding-train-learn-creative-code-nelson-djalo-gif-18141254

[sour horizon]

Last jubilee

Spend it like you don’t care

[nova frost]

https://tenor.com/view/party-hard-surfing-beer-beer-while-surfing-gif-13860321307537351397

[restive scarab]

looks like CH341 was also skipped in the kernel, meshstick appears to be working with my custom kernel that compiled as module + modprobe to load it. AIC8800DC not so much

[nova frost]

Issue plz

[restive scarab]

I'M MAKING A LIST (checking it... maybe)

[nova frost]

Prolly an oversight

https://tenor.com/view/spongebob-squarepants-to-do-list-long-list-gif-5580267

[restive scarab]

also making customize-image.sh work with an array, installing a single apt pkg one at a time offends my sense of efficency

[nova frost]

Even on a 64mb soc?

Oh, customise image.

Nm

[restive scarab]

especially there, why run apt install foo + apt install bar + apt install baz when you can apt install foo bar baz

or wait, actually it already does with multiple pkgs, just called individually - way less annoying

[polar ingot]

saweeeet, meshing-around installed on mpwrd with i2c temp.

[restive scarab]

Hrmm ch341 may already be compiled in and I’m just looking at the USB-UART driver version that I compiled in going through the device drivers, will see when this next one is done building for aic8800. E80-900M2213S still doesn’t seem to work on Lyra Zero W though but not sure how matrix i/o is setup to enable spi (I see /dev/spidev0.0 but no idea what pins it’s trying right now)

[nova frost]

Did you get e80 to work with my switching table?

[restive scarab]

Neither myself or @lavish sorrel ever had any LR11xx it working on the Lyra zero w, same pins work fine with SX126x based stuff when setup with luckfox-config to load the overlays and create /etc/luckfox.cfg though. Latest theory was something funky with matrix i/o and SPI timings the LR11xx is sensitive to

[nova frost]

https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/pull/9761

Can you have a look at that?

Although I now have about eleventy femtos with mikrobus slots, so I suppose I could test it myself...

[restive scarab]

LR1121 generic matches what i've used in the past for E80-900M2213S, your E80 yaml though I'm not sure on, the E80-900M2213S v1.1 datasheet also only shows DIO5/DIO6

[polar ingot]

@sour horizon after a reboot mesh-bot wasnt happy? Mar 22 20:14:41 femtofoxhome bash[893]: 2026-03-22 20:14:41,232 | CRITICAL | System: abort. Initializing Interface1 [Errno 111] Connection refused

but a sudo systemctl restart mesh_bot seemed to work fine

[sour horizon]

I just patched this but if you add

After=meshtasticd.service
Requires=meshtasticd.service

To [unit] on the service file sudo systemctl edit mesh_bot.service

[nova frost]

Oh, the one I'm using matches what I worked out on the mikrobus

[sour horizon]

I have a PR suggestion on contact to handle escape better on slow devices

[polar ingot]

Roof node back up

[polar ingot]

hey @sour horizon, trying ollama with mesh-bot for the first time.... getting request time out in the logs and a message back that says "Request Error". Is this little guy too slow for that?

[sour horizon]

Follows global urlTimeout in the .ini 15 second - may need higher on the roof..

These devices are not capable of local. You could run ollama on a pi in meshOS but likely easier to run raspian for a full LLM (openweui gives you more tooling)

[polar ingot]

yeha i have ollama in a proxmox vm. it works with things like opencode and openwebui so I figure that should work. Ill look at the timeout

[sour horizon]

It’s just using requests to pull the api so very tcp basic

[polar ingot]

does it need the /v1 after the url like most other apps?

[nova frost]

MeshOS is a unified productivity environment for macOS. I think you mean MPWRD-OS

[sour horizon]

No just point it to host:11434 in config

[polar ingot]

made it 45 and that worked! Fun.

[chrome tide]

So i finally put my solar node up over my roof line, before it was just sitting on my firewood stack.. LOL

[fast adder]

I merged a PR from @sour horizon in release 1.5.6 related to the hang-on-quit. Maybe better?

[sour horizon]

A new image / package would need to be pulled down

[polar ingot]

upgrade doesnt work from the mpwrd-menu?

[nova frost]

Depends what that is upgrading

Might only be Meshtasticd, and not included contact

[polar ingot]

theres an option to upgrade packages seperatly. said I got 1.5.6 after the upgrade....

[nova frost]

Hmmm

I should qualify: I am using mpwrdOS but the node had to be hidden away cos my kid keeps grabbing it off the desk

So I've only had a brief play with the new menus

[mild hare]

Which? meshtasticd or something in mesh apps?

Oh contact.

Will check later that pipx is looking in the right place.

[sour horizon]

Something seemed goofy when I ran a pipx list

No data returned

[mild hare]

--global ?

[sour horizon]

Didn’t check that

When I patched I cloned, didn’t run a recompile due to lack of packaging at the time

The issue isn’t actually contact imo but the close() in api

Some creative refactor to exit() with time

[polar ingot]

My spud-mpwrd seemed to upgrade contact no problem from the menu

============

Contact
Manager: pipx | Package: contact

   Install
 > Upgrade
   Uninstall
   Back

Arrows or j/k to move, Enter to select, q to go back.
Upgrading Contact...

[sudo] password for femto:
upgraded package contact from 1.5.5 to 1.5.6 (location: /opt/pipx/venvs/contact)

Completed successfully.```

[sour horizon]

So it might be fine?

.. missing build components to compile pipx-OSC?

[sour horizon]

Looks like it’s fine?

See if the “bug” is gone

You came from 1.4 OM

speaking of… will there be age checks in this OS

My systemd just had me put my ID up to the webcam

[mild hare]

it aint 2027 spud

Republican in Kentucky got a bill up to do that check for entire US.

[sour horizon]

More than just KFC voting for it now

[mild hare]

Either mind control or tech bros lining pockets. None of these politicians are doing what's best.

[sour horizon]

What’s best ..

Is to enjoy meshtastic

Don’t throw away your old hardware for burgers and free ice cream

[mild hare]

i always used to say "I need solar and fruit trees" after reading the news. last of my batteries get delivered today and fruit trees already in the ground. I'm out of reassurances.

Maybe order a bunch of components next.

[sour horizon]

I hear ya, and also have cleaned out a lot of garages ya know

eventually access to GitHub will require a valid

It’s just like taxes

[mild hare]

one of the founders lives 5 minutes from me. I should take him fruit.

[sour horizon]

Wax poetic about simpler times

[mild hare]

btw the marigolds thing doesnt work

[sour horizon]

I’m a Dahlia guy - tubers

And agree - some times I wish I was just a farmer and my news of the day was the bachelor is canceled now what we gonna watch

[mild hare]

It's good to have goals.

[sour horizon]

need to get some components - still working on an ideal game play screen this way

[mild hare]

gotta drive a couple towns over. but food for thought: the mini pico tweaks are good so far right? tried to speed it up best I could. apt too, not much faster i can make it without running scripts instead of apt[-get]. Most issues are general OS related at this point right?

I'm dying to drive boards that arent a Lada.

[twilit mountain]

@shrewd turtle has been playing with a few different tweaks that may be worth adding.

[mild hare]

I saw the one sysctl for drivers. Will eyeball that for sure.

[shrewd turtle]

Awesome, I'm repaving so now could be a perfect time. Fyi, apt upgrade failed due to some missing firmware directories in /lib/firmware

To armbian-firmware package

[sour horizon]

As far as I can tell the platform is twice as stable yea, I didn’t test WiFi adapters or get wild

but the armbian builder is much improved and if you are on arm making images it’s faster to build a new image vs attempt any on device forklifting almost

I do think some more common tools are needed in the base image .. git, i2c easy access I do think is nice addition

The Motd could be tweaked to include the menu and also it might be nice to dump a help file or readme in the user home .. a local doc file for basic use or something

[shrewd turtle]

In office today so can't share any additional details, but I imagine anyone would see the same

[mild hare]

Yeah docs on the list.

[polar ingot]

Agree with @sour horizon , would love the see the menu on the MOTD, probably instead of armbian-config. Otherwise mine so far is trucking along and seems faster/more stable then femto.

one question, did the battery thing ever get figured out? or is that portduino? Shows <1% in my nodes list..

also.... zero device metrics. but that could be a me issue in the config

[chrome tide]

Wifi IS DEF more stable!!!! LOL

[mild hare]

portduino. but people have hooked i2c monitors (INAx) that work.

[polar ingot]

yeah, i think they still don't show the "power state" like plugged in or whatever. No biggy

[mild hare]

yeah always shows zero battery.

[sour horizon]

https://tenor.com/view/walang-battery-gyl-and-ken-naiinis-nabwisit-nabuburyo-gif-20759042

[mild hare]

I too am building a solar node

been a long day

[mild hare]

sudo dpkg -i ./3-23-dev-mpwrd-menu_0.1.0_all.deb```
Has Configure menu option (contact -c).
Has wifi sync service installed (disabled by default, enable and start in services menu).
For wifi toggling, have your client radio as admin on mpwrd femto, use mobile client on your client radio, find the mpwrd node, choose remote admin, choose network, toggle wifi and save.  Couple of things about wifi toggle,to toggle again you have to exit and re-enter the network menu (meshtastic thing) and toggling off is usually really quick but toggling on takes me about 20 seconds to connect to wifi and get an ip.  "Works on my setup" 😆 but the wifi mesh toggle was completely rewritten and seems stable once you get the hang of using it.

Let me know how it works out and lemme know if you need help understanding how to use it. Want some other eyes on it before I publish the changes to live deb.

Toggled the wifi about 20+ times with this deb. Seems to work good with a little patience and learning how to use it. Should help for those nodes you dont want to get the ladder or climbing gear out for.

ie. phone hotspot, toggle wifi on, ssh in and apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y and pray you have enough phone battery and patience. Or just reconnect to your home wifi if it's a home roof node. If you aren't on solar none of this probably matters to you.

[shrewd turtle]

@restive scarab what did you change to add RTL8188EUS, creating a customized build for myself

[twilit mountain]

We already ship the EXTRA_WIFI bit from Armbian upstream. It's almost certainly another Kernelconfig flag that needs to be set to =m

https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/config/kernel/linux-rockchip-rv1106-vendor.config
This is the kernelconfig for the "rv1106" family (which includes rv1103), I maintain this at Armbian upstream 😅

If we can find what needs to be enabled (=m) I'll get it added upstream

We are avoiding shipping a custom kernel in mPWRD-OS itself at all costs (using Armbian upstream and submitting patches as needed works much better)

[shrewd turtle]

oh ok, for testing, is it possible to patch the kernel config through userpatches?

[twilit mountain]

Absolutely!

Copy https://raw.githubusercontent.com/armbian/build/refs/heads/main/config/kernel/linux-rockchip-rv1106-vendor.config to
userpatches/linux-rockchip-rv1106-vendor.config
and hack away

Just note any of your changes would be replaced with a kernel update from apt (when a newer revision is published, which does happen)

[shrewd turtle]

oh good thing to know 🙂

[twilit mountain]

That caveat is the reason I refuse to modify the kernel in mPWRD-OS itself (especially when Armbian is so easy to contribute to)

Great for testing though ❤️

[restive scarab]

device drivers > network device > wireless lan > rtlwifi family > rtl8188eus

looks like it's CONFIG_R8188EU=m from grepping the kernel config file

[twilit mountain]

Does it flip on anything else?

[shrewd turtle]

R8188EU is the one in staging i think right?

[restive scarab]

hrmm not sure, my kernel config has drifted a bit trying to get lyra zero w's onboard aic8800 working and even w/o that still seems to have SPI timing issues with LR11xx and then my FTDI cable stopped inputting correctly so it all went back into the back of crap

[twilit mountain]

Lyra Zero W's AIC8800 works out of the box (at least when I added it)
you just have to

rfkill unblock all

[restive scarab]

that would imply it was even detected, which it wasn't in v0.1.0 when I tried

[twilit mountain]

It doesn't power on at all until you run rfkill

Which is a (power saving) feature not a bug (just not immediately apparent)

[restive scarab]

https://tenor.com/zSXw.gif

[twilit mountain]

This is why we need to write docs 😅

[restive scarab]

did you try the gpio twiddle trick to swap between onboard/ufl antennas?

[twilit mountain]

I have not! I thought it was a solder-thing. It's a GPIO? 😮

Would be cool to expose that in Armbian (and thus mPWRD-OS)

[restive scarab]

yeah, somewhere in luckfox's docs...lemme see if i can (re)find it

right at the top

echo 55 > /sys/class/gpio/export  
cd /sys/class/gpio/gpio55
echo out > direction     
echo 1 > value

[twilit mountain]

Hmm I suppose that should work in Armbian too (I believe we have the sys_gpio stuff enabled in the kconfig)

[mild hare]

@twilit mountain I thought all the standard drivers we all have in drawers was m already, I swear I remember that nigjt

[twilit mountain]

RTL8188EU is cancer, but it's prolific (cheap)

I don't have any / didn't test / didn't think about it

We/Armbian upstream should support it though, they're everywhere

[restive scarab]

yeah gpioinfo seemed to work which I think relies on it, and yeah this RTL8188EU is literally (unplug from smolfox, plug into zero w)

[mild hare]

super low power too

[restive scarab]

and was def a common one people used for femto builds

[twilit mountain]

I was trying to avoid enabling EVERYTHING (and still am) but this makes the cut

[twilit mountain]

On RK3506 / other rockchip SOCs the whole kitchen sink is enabled more or less, at least as far as wifi adapters are concerned ❤️

[restive scarab]

i just got pico mini As, pico (non-mini) on the babelfox, pico + lyra ultra and the lyra zero w

well and the raspis, zero w2 works great w/wehooper's nebra duo hat, no hoops to jump through or shenanigans

[upper salmon]

I haven't a clue how to power this, 1.7 or 1.1.

[nova frost]

usb-c next to the RJ45

[nova frost]

usb-c next to RJ45

its both serial and power

[upper salmon]

Hmmmm, any tips? lol

I’ll post here for now

I’m using an official raspi 27W (I think) PSU, has all of the voltages

[nova frost]

It's not switching on from that?

Post a photo showing the board

[upper salmon]

with or without the OTG connector?

My 1.1 powers on just fine

[mild hare]

what you feeding it?

[upper salmon]

I'm gonna let v1.1 boot up and do its thing first

raspi 27W PD PSU

[mild hare]

you on mpwrd-os yet?

[upper salmon]

nope

no clue what that is

[mild hare]

successor to Foxbuntu

[mild hare]

i never us PD's with foxes. you got a regular 5v2-3 amp supply or usb-c to usb-a and just plug it into that laptop?

[upper salmon]

oh yeah, laptop, duh

nothing

third PSU, nothing

[mild hare]

try pulling the pico out and plugging it back in maybe (with power off)

[upper salmon]

I did that to insert the sd card

do it again?

[mild hare]

worth a try, I have had to a couple of times.

[mild hare]

https://github.com/mPWRD-OS/mPWRD-OS/releases

[upper salmon]

interesting.....I can swap foxes

[mild hare]

i was just gonna say this. leave the sd cards where they are

like try old sd and pico on new board

and use laptop to power it

[upper salmon]

standby

[upper salmon]

Oh, I did not put 2 and 2 together about that

[mild hare]

first release, missing some goodies but it's been treating me great

[upper salmon]

lights are blinking

[mild hare]

so another test...

[upper salmon]

should I put that naughty fox in the 1.1 and boot

swap them basically

[mild hare]

put old sd in new pico and new femto

could just be sd card

[upper salmon]

fair

naughty fox doesn't boot up

do I have to wait the 7 mins for the first boot to happen????

before removing it from power?

[mild hare]

probably. i always watch the bootup with a usb-c to usb-a cable on a laptop and watch it with a terminal. linux or windows?

[upper salmon]

linux

[mild hare]

sudo tio -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0

[upper salmon]

I use arch, BTW

I did just install minicom

[mild hare]

😆

[mild hare]

perfect

I always watch on serial for first boot/build

in fact I watched every single 1.1 I ever shipped boot and sent a message on it. 😁

[upper salmon]

but even still, it doesn't like it

[mild hare]

nothing?

minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 115200

[upper salmon]

I take that back

[mild hare]

minicom is annoying where you gotta plug it in before the command

[upper salmon]

I was assuming it could whip up a command, but I ran it, found the settings, and am looking at it now

ooooOOOoooOO, what's the password LOL

[mild hare]

new pico new board old sdcard?

[mild hare]

femto:fox I believe

for u:p

[upper salmon]

yes

I went over to the guide to make good habits

I'm in

v1.1

awww shit yes

[mild hare]

sorry, I'm confused (just crawled out from under a car). what hardware you get booted?

[upper salmon]

so the v1.7 combo has the v1.1 fox on it, and booted and on the network

console access works, and I can get to it over the webpage console, that is slick BTW

swap SD cards?

[mild hare]

1.7 femtofox pro, old sd card, pico mini from new 1.7 board?

[upper salmon]

currently I have 1.7 femtofox pro, working sd card, pico mini from 1.1 board working

[mild hare]

ah ok.

yeah swap sd cards and watch boot. maybe just the card imaged bad?

[upper salmon]

awesome

gracefully shutdown running setup?

[mild hare]

sudo halt

128gb max btw if that matters

[upper salmon]

thank you

bad SD card something

thank you so much

I learned stuff, cowabunga

MINICOM, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[mild hare]

try imaging it again or download a new image and try again

[upper salmon]

the download is fine, I did two cards back to back

one works the other not

still, thank you very much

[mild hare]

Foxes have a special place in my heart.

[upper salmon]

back to the M-Powered OS, should I rock that???

[mild hare]

if you testing out hell ya.

[upper salmon]

that is so awesome, I love it

[mild hare]

may be missing a few wifi drivers and minor features but it's been stable as hell

[upper salmon]

I love the linux-radio crossover, it's fun

[mild hare]

did your 1.1 come from california?

[upper salmon]

I have two foxes, what else would I do in the meantime 🙂

[upper salmon]

I dunno, pretty sure that was etsy, the 1.7 was NYC groupbuy

i don't remember* off hand

[mild hare]

if it was usa etsy, it may be in that picture 😉

[upper salmon]

awesome sauce, I love that kind of thing, makes me feel special like mom says I am 😉

[mild hare]

Btw, mpwrd-os supports other boards (I have not tested personally tested them yet) that are way faster. Femtofox pro is meant for low power like solar or mobile.

[upper salmon]

oh yes, this is what I want to get into

@restive scarab I'm sure has been like, any day now, PDD will put it all together, maybe, maybe not 😉

these non linux nodes are portable, but soulless

lol

[sour horizon]

The le potato will ride again

[mild hare]

Btw, dunno if it's still there but in SF back in the day on 11th and Harrison there was a place called The Za Spot. They put the weirdest shit on pizza like asparagus, red potatoes, etc. and to top it off there was a man hole outside that would vent steam. We always jokes the turtles were down there partying.

oh and eggplant

[sour horizon]

Had one with macaroni and cheese once at a pizza joint near Lewis and Clark .. wanna say it was in Lewis.

It was a good weird one

Mustard sauce

[mild hare]

https://tenor.com/view/tmnt-donatello-thumbs-up-approved-you-got-it-gif-23483727

[upper salmon]

my current favorite NYC slice is the pasta slice, have 1-2 a week😋 . It doesn't seem like normal pizza toppings, but I am of the opinion you can put whatever you want on YOUR pizza

so used a different sd card, cowabunga, two foxes blinking at me!!!!!!!

[mild hare]

Epic!

[upper salmon]

I went from 0 working femtofoxes today, to 2 working femtofoxes, and I also learned how to use minicom, @shrewd turtle !!! WOOOOOO!

thank you all!

I have a couple of radios in my studio.......what should I set my '30dBm Transmit Power' to so I don't blast out everything withing 20 feet?

[sour horizon]

As low as you want I run 5-10 and let the roof handle it all

Client mute and client base

If they are about a foot apart and not running some wild antenna they won’t cause harm

[upper salmon]

yeah, I have the same setup, but I was curious if 22 is +22dBm

I have 2 femtofoxes, a meshtoad and a v4 all on muzi whips within 10-15 feet of each other

a few regular radios around

[sour horizon]

Most people do the same

[upper salmon]

I've never messed with that setting before, so that's nice to dial back 🙂

last question of the night, both foxes have the same mac addresses on my network, did that happen when I swapped around pico minis and sd cards??

[mild hare]

yes. mac is generated at first boot based on cpu serial number. guessing you did both first boots on same pico.

[upper salmon]

Yes, ok, good exercise, I’ll power them down and try again tomorrow

Thanks for the help, seriously 👊

[restive scarab]

@upper salmon still waiting for when I can order a pie over mesh 😉

[upper salmon]

for real, maybe for a whole pie, maybe not for just a slice

[shrewd turtle]

hah, I wound up ultimately swiching to using screen 'screen /dev/ttyUSB4 115200', i had issues with copy and pasting in minicom, instead of figuring out the issue (likely related to flow control), just started using screen

[shrewd turtle]

@restive scarab fyi, enabling R8188EU (r8188eu) worked perfectly, and seems to be the most stable usb wifi card I have tried thus far with the board. I will see if I can raise upstream, but issue is that its a staging driver (but does that even matter?)

I also tried ac1200, which was a mess that kept dropping/dissociating, and driver failed to load often due to consecutive memory issues. I think AC drivers in general pull in a huge memory hungry stack

[upper salmon]

What do you all use to configure your radios? I’ve been using my iOS app as making yaml files isn’t always liked by the device

[nova frost]

I just stick the standard yaml file in there, with the i2c enabled, and use the android app to configure the normal settings.

[restive scarab]

meshtsticd yaml + meshtastic python cli here

[cerulean helm]

Guess what's here?

[quasi onyx]

oooooo

nice nice

[cerulean helm]

I was wondering why the 180-degree USB-C wasn't installed in the normal spot, and I put it in and then I realized, oh yeah, I need to get to the SD card.

The real question is Foxbuntu or mPWRd

Lol

[quasi onyx]

mpwrd ofc

[cerulean helm]

And so it begins

Do I pigtail off of the daugterboard or the radio module?

[quasi onyx]

huh

[quasi onyx]

ooh

i would say the daughterboard but @nova frost

[sour horizon]

Looks like #notabomb

[cerulean helm]

lol

[nova frost]

Are you in the EU?

[cerulean helm]

No

US

[nova frost]

Then use the main module

The filter is tuned for the EU.

[cerulean helm]

Ahh

[nova frost]

I just sold out of the e22p-915 modules...

😬

[quasi onyx]

oop

very popular

[cerulean helm]

💸

[nova frost]

See how you get on with that one. It's marginally better than the e22p unless you have a high noise environment

[cerulean helm]

SD card faces in right?

🤏

Had to use a little piece of cardboard to guide it in

Does it does USB gadget or do I need Ethernet?

[nova frost]

Once in place, you can use the usb port on the side to get serial access

[cerulean helm]

Oh, yep, just plugged it in.

What baud?

115200 didnt work

Oh weird 115200 worked

I was getting garbled but now have the password prompt

[nova frost]

With small node comes small responsibility

[quasi onyx]

yes

[quasi onyx]

nice

[cerulean helm]

CONTACT

[quasi onyx]

yeeesss

[nova frost]

https://tenor.com/view/zootopia-happy-dance-oh-yeah-thats-right-gif-19059496

but anyway...

[cerulean helm]

Poor little thing loading Cockpit

Now to get this in a better location

Normal people just buy a Heltec V3

I'm not so normal.

[quasi onyx]

neither am i 🙃

[cerulean helm]

1W on the dot

I have this as high as the T1000E so far, but not seeing anything even receive

Hmm

I wonder if the Amazon special antenna is actually tuned

Okay, I moved it a little bit and reseated everything and yeah, we're pulling in some people.

I love the song and dance of getting all your nodes favorited and talking to each other.

Finally

Well, that figures...

The acknowledgements I was receiving was myself.

https://tenor.com/view/multiverso-multiverso-akela-multiverso-scout-gif-8208802467565299466

Now I just look like the crazy person and nobody wants to respond.

[quasi onyx]

lol

indeed we are sometimes crazy

[sour horizon]

Can I charge from POTS

[upper salmon]

Does NYC qualify as a high noise environment?

[cerulean helm]

There we go, first contact.

[cerulean helm]

Is the USB-C interconnect just for the USB-A or is that pulling some other function?

[nova frost]

Just the usb a interconnect

[shrewd turtle]

nice case...ish

still waiting for someone smarter than myself to create a 3d printable case for newest revision 😛

[chrome tide]

When do I get mine ? ;P

[polar ingot]

hey @twilit mountain I had no problem building armbian a few times, and then thought I would experement with a luckfox pico pro, which built a few times without problem, and now: 🐳|🔨] err: The group `i2c' already exists, but has a different GID. Exiting.

[twilit mountain]

I've seen that error before... 🤔 you're still building minimal right?

iirc this is an Armbian upstream issue with the non-minimal images

[polar ingot]

Oh maybe thats the issue, i was building minimal

but maybe not anymore

[twilit mountain]

It still needs a fixin 🔨 just upstream (in Armbian)

[polar ingot]

10-4

[twilit mountain]

https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/9607
Speaking of 🙂 RTL8188EU support inbound

[polar ingot]

correct, minimal builds

thanks

[fervent pier]

I have to hand it to @twilit mountain and @mild hare - mPWRD-OS is pretty darn slick! Nice work guys!

[chrome tide]

I think we need a mPWRD-OS channel or thread at the very least. Trying to get ppl into it on the SoCalMesh discord..

[shrewd turtle]

prob a good idea, especially if it spans beyond femtofox

[nova frost]

Thread in #meshtasticd ?

Ideally it'll be folded into that whole piece eventually

[chrome tide]

Yes, I think that's where it should go..

[polar ingot]

@chrome tide have you tried an oled with mpwrd-os?

[chrome tide]

I have a 2.4" OLED on my 1 femtofox im testing mPWRD-OS on..

With an I2C rotary encoder..

I also have a BME280 on it..

[polar ingot]

ok. mine isnt working with a bmp280. perhaps something in my settings

[chrome tide]

Everything is working as expected..

Is it being detected by meshtasticd ?

[polar ingot]

Good question, I didnt know it could check. BMP is working

[chrome tide]

If you see it detected in logs, then it could be that telemetry isn't enabled for env sensors..

[polar ingot]

Mar 28 11:20:43 hfox meshtasticd[944]: INFO  | 11:20:43 0 SSD1306 found at address 0x3c
Mar 28 11:20:43 hfox meshtasticd[944]: INFO  | 11:20:43 0 SSD1306 found at address 0x3c
Mar 28 11:20:43 hfox meshtasticd[944]: INFO  | 11:20:43 0 BMP-280 found at address 0x76
Mar 28 11:20:43 hfox meshtasticd[944]: INFO  | 11:20:43 0 2 I2C devices found```

yup its there... twice?

got it

native tft was selected by default

[proven plaza]

The fox has moved into its new enclosure.
I just hope I hooked everything up right.

[nova frost]

I assume you're going to run it at 500mW?

Some of the NYmesh are struggling with the boards causing a brownout at the full 1W

They're fitting them with supercaps to try and compensate

[proven plaza]

I'm in the EU, so I'm only allowed 500 mW anyway.

[nova frost]

I'm not your mum 😉

[proven plaza]

I have to receive the signal from the other side too, so using "very" high power on just one side doesn't really help much.

[nova frost]

Like this?

Tbf, it's snr not rssi, but still

[proven plaza]

I'm really curious to see how the signal strength changes once the Fox goes live. Right now, I'm using a RAK with a 3.5 dBi antenna. The Fox will have a 6 dBi antenna.

[restive scarab]

CE 1.1 alpha ran fine for about 8months here 🤷

[chrome tide]

I'm gonna be running at 1W... I don't want brown outs... You make fix ? ;P

[chrome tide]

I read this as TBoi at first.... :\

[polar ingot]

what is that purple board I'm seeing in a lot of photos lately?

[polar ingot]

same

[mild hare]

socketed radio.

[cerulean helm]

There's you a good shot.

[nova frost]

Yee, there's EU and US variants of the radio, and I can't keep up with the different SKU so I dug this design out from last year. I've been meaning to do this thing with the usb port, too.

[chrome tide]

Hell I need one of these, simply cuz of the USB-A port!

[polar ingot]

well that's slick!

[shrewd turtle]

i would be very happy if i never had to see another ipex connector 😛

i have multiple broken devices(not femtofoxes, but others) because something silly happened and pulled/tugged at the socket. Or if its recycled too many times it just decides to not fasten anymore :/

am I the only one that feels that way?

[twilit mountain]

Right there with ya. I've lost a few ipex connectors 😅

[nova frost]

That's why I put the radio face down 🙃

[nova frost]

Can put a sma connector on the next ones if you feel that strongly?

[shrewd turtle]

heh no worries, but that does sound good 😛

[nova frost]

It's a process of continuous improvement. I'll look at how to incorporate it better.

It's already been pointed out that the ipex is very close to the usb port, meaning it's difficult to make a retainer that's a suitable thickenss

[upper salmon]

Supercap to battery backup on strix???? What size JST connectors do I need from FemtoFox to strix?

[sour horizon]

I put a fork on mpwrd-menu with some ideas for enhance

Cleaned up some items and added ability to have this on more platforms

Like why can’t someone just run this menu to manage a pi

*still some things missing for this

[nova frost]

Supercap goes in the big holes on the right (check underside for polarity)

[nova frost]

You need mx1.25 off the Strix (or just solder to the header pins at the bottom) and jst-ph (2.0mm) on the femto

[sour horizon]

They can now

I’m not dep pipx yet but

See if these ideas are used

[mild hare]

I made it work for ubuntu as well. I dont see why not.

[sour horizon]

Yea I added a lot to it - the repo wasn’t clean prior

[mild hare]

Doped up from medical but will eyeball and cherrypick when I'm able.

[twilit mountain]

Went ahead and incorporated a few packages from you and @chrome tide but uh 😅 you're a crazy person for installing build-essential on these poor things (and breaking system packages with meshtastic cli)

[sour horizon]

I saw; it’s only disk space.

And the change allows base OS connectivity to the api

In pipx it’s CLI

I understand the desire for a end-point hardened

I also feel there should be a dev-fork

This package will power any arm easily

[twilit mountain]

I encourage the dev-forks ❤️ Please go nuts

[sour horizon]

I reforked today for OS and figured it’s gonna sit that way

[twilit mountain]

mPWRD-OS is like 8 layers deep of open source projects standing on top of other open source projects, add another layer!

[twilit mountain]

I'd suggest you just keep main untouched in your fork, and create another branch (make that other branch the default branch).
Then when changes are made upstream you can easily just press "sync fork" and then run git pull & git rebase main locally

That's the lazy fork flow I typically follow lol

[sour horizon]

Totally but finding the branch is not always for the birds

[twilit mountain]

Just make your branch the default 👍 (and leave main there for syncin, out of sight)

[mild hare]

And we can cherrypick the good stuff from forks as we go, but no nuclear powered roller coaster kitchen sink like last time. And after foxbuntu I'm an advocate that us meshers have "needs". But gotta be slow and surgical. Couldnt install MT7601u last night on lyra zero, so I get it. And I always install build-essentials cuz I dev stuff. So dont lose heart, just gonna take some patience.

[sour horizon]

The tool could ask for hardened or dev

[chrome tide]

Are they related to my git issue ? 😉

[twilit mountain]

https://github.com/mPWRD-OS/mPWRD-OS/pull/68

Caved and added a few

Those additions made sense without adding too much extra.

[sour horizon]

Except for vi who uses that

[twilit mountain]

The flip side of adding big dependencies like build-essential is... now you've gotta update all those packages 😅

[twilit mountain]

Yeah I'm a proud nano user @chrome tide is nuts 🤪

[chrome tide]

vi for life!!!! ;P

[twilit mountain]

There are enough of you, and the package is small enough 😛 I give up

[chrome tide]

I used pico when I was first starting out in the mid-90s, but I found vi, and have never tried another..

[twilit mountain]

Props to @sour horizon for remembering emoji. Can't believe I forgot those 😅

[chrome tide]

LOL

[twilit mountain]

That's core functionality in Meshtastic-land.

[chrome tide]

vi over emojis.. ;P j/k

[upper salmon]

A or B?

I soldered to A, the holes to the right of the connector.

Is it B on the right side of the board?

Sorry for the red markup

[nova frost]

yes, B.

Look underneath!

In tiny writing

[upper salmon]

Damn, I completely mis understood that

[nova frost]

No problem - no harm done

brb - just making the writing bigger

[upper salmon]

Both sides?

I do love all of the extra printed on bits 🙂

@nova frost solder supercap to these pins?

[sour horizon]

Mind the gap

[nova frost]

yes

[upper salmon]

That’s not the same board

[nova frost]

best I can do at 1:30

continuous improvement

mesh moves fast

[upper salmon]

Like this?

[nova frost]

yes

[upper salmon]

Thank you 😎

[nova frost]

there's two + holes in case you can only rustle up 0.1F caps or something

[upper salmon]

Cool cool 😎

I assume that’s a sizing thing?

[nova frost]

and an earlier design didn't have as many holes, so naturally the first supercap I bought was exactly the wrong spacing

[upper salmon]

I know that feeling well!

[nova frost]

I did do some research on what standard spacings were for supercaps, and the research came back with "whatever your heart desires"

2.5? 2.54? 5? 5.08? 5.25? etc.

[upper salmon]

Got the supercap in the correct spot, now to figure out mounting.

Get some rest, Monday is right around the corner

[nova frost]

It's already here

Run from it

Hide from it

etc.

[mild hare]

https://github.com/mPWRD-OS/mpwrd-menu/pull/36

Should be an artifact to test or just use the repo. Will merge to main after I kick it around more (gotta dig out a pi)

[mild hare]

Added versions display. Also Configure menu entry and mesh wifi toggle (disabled service by default) are live. sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

[upper salmon]

I love TUI’s and pizza 🍕

[sour horizon]

I enjoyed

keep the current main menu ordering and existing workflow files unchanged

I could have just moved back and added a pr but heh

No tag .. just cherry pick

I closed the issue - the code handled it

I also noticed some issues mentioned n #meshtasticd but it’s beyond scope for now here

[mild hare]

all good. your changes were tight and clean. thank you.

[mild hare]

Do issues like spaghetti, throw em all at it and see what sticks. Also, if you throw in issues referencing stuff on your fork you think should go in I'll totally try to look when I do passes. Unfortunately I am not yet omnipresent like jbennet or nomdetom 😅

[sour horizon]

Those raviolis are busy cookin’

I will circle back on the fork in a few days and synch and clean - I can branch ideas if easier

[mild hare]

@sour horizon and hey I heard what you wer saying about a tight version vs full version. Thats kinda what happened to mpwrd-config (not menu) and it's dusty on the shelf. Focusing on clean mpwrd-menu now but yeah, we'll find a place for all the things one way or another.

[mild hare]

Whatever is easiest for you to be creative. I can cherry pick and give credit easy too so no worries

[chrome tide]

1 issue I'm seeing w/ mPWRD-OS, is wifi doesn't seem to reconnect after it disconnects

Hmm, seems like the mt76x0u driver had some issues..

This is before unplugging wifi when it wouldn't connect, to after I unplugged it. I had to reboot to get the wifi to work again.

[nova frost]

mine does that on foxbuntu

and also on rasbian

[chrome tide]

Yea, that was my main issues with foxbuntu, and that driver..

It would randomly just KP sometimes also..

I figured it was due to the older kernel for the KPs.. Since mPWRD-OS doesn't KP, that kinda confirms it for me..

[sour horizon]

https://cyberpress.org/vim-vulnerability/

[chrome tide]

Sounds like it's a local user vulnerability.. It's highly unlikely that someone on my network, or outside of my network will be able to log into one of my systems. I have everything locked down by IP also.

Especially if it's connected directly to the internet..

[sour horizon]

You know nano users don’t have these issues

mPWRD OS undone by vim

[chrome tide]

If you're dumb enough to put it directly on the internet, then so be it.. :/ LOL

[sour horizon]

Hear me out meshtastic shell to vim apt

[chrome tide]

Say what ?

[sour horizon]

%{`sudo meshtastic --tunnel`}

Open in a new tab and let me add some libs

cowsay the planet

[chrome tide]

You have to have access to the system to do that, from my understanding. You can't randomly inject it, remotely.

[chrome tide]

Yea, my wifi seems to keep disconnecting, and not reconnecting..

[nova frost]

Cron job

Or a systemd thing

To poke it occasionally even if it's dropped off?

[mild hare]

Tom has same problem. I do not.

[nova frost]

"works on my machine"

Yee, but you run an enterprise -grade network with 5-9s uptime

Backed by literally uninterruptible power supplies

I run 6 5 cheap-ass mesh WiFi boxes from a decade ago, that are backed by some vape cells and stuff I bought off Ali for a dollar

That need resetting nightly to stop them going weird.

😝

[mild hare]

i use Mikrotik everywhere.

https://youtu.be/48KAk0rjFxo?si=xga_hW5nQzDJhZqB

[nova frost]

Enterprise -grade

[mild hare]

consumer priced

[nova frost]

I just checked, but this consumer... 💸

Might be able to get an audience

[mild hare]

they got $50-$100 routers and aps

[nova frost]

Singular

Argh, sleep time.

That's a problem for future tom.

[restive scarab]

only thing that consistently drops off my wifi is the RTL8188EUS dongle on foxbuntu (if left idle, leaving mosh connected seems to let it stay connected) and an orange-pi zero2 which is especially sensitive to interference / high channel utilization but comes back after forcing it to reconnect

[mild hare]

I think thats the combo Tom uses

[nova frost]

Yee, lowest power one I could find

[chrome tide]

I have Unifi APs, pfSense router, Cisco managed switches, and UPSes on everything..

[chrome tide]

Welp, just got a KP w/ mPWRD-OS..

[mild hare]

dang mt76u is the chip I love most.

[chrome tide]

Yea, it seems pretty solid.. I think it could be due to the USB getting bumped.. need a v1.7 for testing.. LOL J/K

[nova frost]

Well, will have to wait.

I think I'm out of stock of those

[shrewd turtle]

for me, mpwrd+r8188eu(RTL8188EUS dongle) is the most stable for me

have not had any drops that I am aware of

[chrome tide]

.

[chrome tide]

Would this work for a battery powered FemtoFox ? https://interestingengineering.com/energy/nrd-nuclear-battery-nbv

@quasi onyx I was gonna ask if it would work for a Washtastic board also... ;P

[floral marten]

I think you’d need 1000 of them to power an NRF node.

[quasi onyx]

Can it supply enough voltage and current?

[floral marten]

It’s putting out nano-amps

[chrome tide]

I think it's to low right now..

[quasi onyx]

Yea lol

Needs 1A atleast

[chrome tide]

But a nuclear powered node, would be cool.. LOL

[floral marten]

Oh, sorry, 1M of them.

Milli/micro/nano

[quasi onyx]

Maybe one day

[chrome tide]

Just need to order some radio active hazard stickers..

[mild hare]

Don't need nuke bro.

[chrome tide]

I don't have THAT kinda money right now.. LOL

Still looking for work.. 🙁

[mild hare]

Was a batteryhookup.com buy, think it was $20 or less last year.

[upper salmon]

I have a DS3231 RTC and a F2F 1.1, do I need to enable this in software before installing? Running Foxbuntu v1.0.0

I got it working just by plugging it in again.

I plugged it in a little while ago, the whole thing would not boot. Unplugged it, booted fine. Guess I had my dummy shoes on. I dunno what was the issue.

[nova frost]

Wrong way round, maybe?

Can't think of any other reasons.

[upper salmon]

I did look that up, and I plugged it in facing the center of the board. Who knows, I'm glad it's working 🙂

[upper salmon]

Shifting gears a bit, trying to get this beast to boot up. I tried two different SD cards, no lights 🙁

ideas?

[nova frost]

You've got the polarity wrong

I think

The plug into the board is reversed. Swap the wires over inside the plug.

[quasi onyx]

Ahaahah

[nova frost]

did this fix it?

[upper salmon]

I just swapped it around, it did not.

I did notice the +++ on the board 🙂

[nova frost]

does it work when plugged in the other way?

[upper salmon]

no

[mild hare]

You check if it says anything via serial?

@upper salmon If card is no good, it'll spam a message, RKBOOT or something I think. If you get nothing, it's something else.

[nova frost]

Can you start breaking it down a bit and seeing what is working and what isn't?

1. Luckfox pico mini
2. Luckfox baseboard with no radio
3. etc.

In fact, if you have a multimeter, it might be worth taking all the modules out of the sockets and just checking if there's continuity between 5v and gnd.

[upper salmon]

I'll try that today

[upper salmon]

I will also try that today 🙂

[upper salmon]

I’ll get to v1.7 later today because this was ahead in the queue

v1.1

[upper salmon]

pulled the luckfox pico mini out....plugged into computer, no blinky blinky with either SD card. Figures I just screwed together the other fox that I have

mPWRD-OS_26.02.0-trunk_Luckfox-pico-mini_trixie_vendor_6.1.115_minimal.img.xz

I did rename it to mPWRD-OS_26.02.0-trunk_Luckfox-pico-mini_trixie_vendor_6.1.115_minimal.img before writing to sd card with dd, correct actions??

[nova frost]

Hmmm. Xz is zipped - I think it needs decompression first?

[warm geyser]

yeah, you probably need to run it through unxz (or whatever that's an alias for) first

[nova frost]

Winrar that's 3700+ days over the 40 day free trial?

[mild hare]

Balena etcher can take the compressed file as is.

[nova frost]

Ah, true. I found it worked better with it decompressed

[mild hare]

Never had an issue

[restive scarab]

I can't remember which flasher I used but one wasn't happy with .xz (I switch between raspi's, balena and armbian's imager)

[upper salmon]

Man, that’s totally on me. When I tried to unzip it, it didn’t like the xz

[nova frost]

Eh, we don't know what we don't know.

Rumsfeld tried to warn us.

[upper salmon]

TIL xz —decompress foofoo.xz

It’s alive 😎

Thanks everyone 👊

[quasi onyx]

awesome

[mild hare]

Sweet dude!

[restive scarab]

well it's def not Armbian Imager (just flashed .xz to sd card, it showed "Decompressing Image" before it started the write)

[twilit mountain]

Armbian Imager and Balena both handle it fine 👍