Raspbian Buster - Good News

[Scally]

Hi all,

This morning I updated Raspbian Buster on my RPi 4b and also did a sudo rpi-update which now comes with warnings, so BEWARE. don’t do this on Raspbian Stretch otherwise you will lose speech forever.
I was intending to try all the sound packages again, but to my amazement, ogg123 and play now work again, so full speech and speed-voice is now working on Picochess.

There is still a problem with the Bluetooth connection to my Revelation 2 but I have a get around for that which also works for me.

This afternoon, I backed up my main micro sd card in my DGT Pi which has a Raspberry Pi 3b plus within. I then went through the conversion process to Buster that I posted in an earlier thread and all went well.
At the end there was still only part speech, but when I did the sudo rpi-update all worked well. I’m keeping my 2 micro sd cards separate, the one in my RPi 4 is a genuine Buster build, the one in my RPi 3b+ is a Stretch conversion to Buster which contains all my work.

Here’s my Bluetooth get around until we find a better way:

sudo service picochess stop
sudo bluetoothctl
power on
agent on
default agent
remove xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (your Revelation 2 bluetooth Id)
quit
sudo reboot

.... Picochess should connect to your Revelation 2.

I’m remaining on Stretch for the time being, but Buster may be the way forward soon.


Cheers,

Al.

[Scally]

Hi all,

I just found a shorter way with the Bluetooth connection problem:

Simply entering:

sudo service picochess stop
sudo bluetoothctl

remove xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (revelation 2 bluetooth Id)
sudo reboot

...works for me.

Al.

[Jannick Kuijpers]

Just got to ask, is there a way to do this update from Raspberry Pi 4.  I am just getting started but all what is mentioned here is for older releases of raspbian and those won't run so I can't upgrade that.

With the help of Henri I managed to get a working version of picochess in buster, but I really hope that once this is working there will be an image available of a buster distribution with picochess and not just a version with stretch or Jessie with instructions on how to upgrade that, because I can't do that.

Finally got my board and clock, so I am really looking forward to get the best version available :)

Op wo 25 sep. 2019 om 19:58 schreef Scally <scall...@gmail.com>:

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[Scally]

Hi Jannick,

The first thing I did this morning was update Buster on my RPi 4, as I said.

If you have Picochess working, then all you need for full speech is to do 3 updates via a terminal.

On a Raspberry Pi 4 ONLY with Buster:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo rpi-update

Reply y to any prompts.

Al.

[Jannick Kuijpers]

Hmmmm, I should have waited to do this tomorrow morning.

Got the following error messages

cp: error writing '/boot/kernel8.img': No space left on device
cp: error writing '/boot/kernel.img': No space left on device

That's nothing bad, I can simply revert back to the previous version, just need to figure out how to use the full 32 GB on my SD Card, because running out of space just seems impossible.  But will look into that tomorrow, thanks for showing me that I can do this too on the pi4  Just need more memory, but yeah tomorrow :D

Op wo 25 sep. 2019 om 21:17 schreef Scally <scall...@gmail.com>:

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[Scally]

Jannick,

Just enter this on a terminal connected to your RPi:

sudo raspi-config
Option 7 Advanced Options
Option A1 Expand Filesystem
Enter
OK
Finish
Yes (to reboot)

Al.

[Scally]

Hi all,

Here’s a simpler way to get Bluetooth to connect on Buster at boot:

sudo crontab -e

Add this line to the bottom and save:

@reboot /bin/echo -e 'remove xx:xx:xx:xx:xx \nquit' | bluetoothctl

Where xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx is your Rev2 BT address

Cheers,

Al.

[Jannick Kuijpers]

Thank you Al,

But it didn't work, it should have worked, and I probably did something wrong.

I couldn't boot the raspberry pi, so I put the original image on the SD card, booted it up with the ethernet cable.

Started sudo raspi-config

Changed my wifi settings and enlarged the size of the SD card, it didn't give me an option to what size it would be enlarged, so I was guessing it did that to the MAX (if this is not the case I should simply do that twice.)

Did the update steps described above but with the last step it gave me still one error, better than the 2 I had before so something should have changed but still I hope somebody can tell me what I did wrong or should I get an even bigger size SD card (this is unlikely I know, but still, maybe 32 GB wasn't enough)  Or should I have gotten an option to choose the size I wanted to enlarge to?

Op wo 25 sep. 2019 om 23:35 schreef Scally <scall...@gmail.com>:

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[Jannick Kuijpers]

Just to add this, I checked the disksize in windows and the partition was fully expanded to 28 GB and something, so it should have worked, maybe I'm just unlucky.

Op do 26 sep. 2019 om 07:26 schreef Jannick Kuijpers <radio...@gmail.com>:

[Al]

Hiya,

32gb is more than enough, I have several Picochess systems all the engines source code and versions, loads of tools, bash files & scripts etc and still have 7gb left.

Are you up and running now?

Al.

[Jannick Kuijpers]

Yes I am up and running now :)  But not in any hurry, even when I may sound impatience or so.

Op do 26 sep. 2019 om 08:10 schreef Al <scal...@gmail.com>:

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[Jannick Kuijpers]

Well I did say that wrong, kinda thought you meant whether or not I was awake.

But I am running the previous version of raspbian buster, sorry about the confusion feel kinda ashamed, that I'm not in a hurry is the truth still, infact I don't know if I should do this again or maybe I make an image from the current state, so I don't have to worry about changing any of the settings, probably will give me a 32 GB image, but I can zip that.

Op do 26 sep. 2019 om 08:15 schreef Jannick Kuijpers <radio...@gmail.com>:

[Henri Spijkerman]

I read the good news and was thrilled, but I am cooled down now. I have the same experience Pi4 as RadioMan. It keeps stating that there is no space on the disk, even when using a 64 gb card. I tried moving files from the /boot folder to free space there, the rpi-update succeeded, but the Pi did not boot up after that.

Already a bit frustrated I tried a good old PicoV201.image, updated and upgraded it and then updated it to Buster, Pi does not boot, not even on my Pi3b+....

The rpi-update seems to be a tricky thing and is NOT the definite solution I fear.

Henri

[Scally]

Hi Henri,

I know you only think of me as the “engine man”, but believe me it works.

I did 3 extra micro sd card conversions today all at 32gb with all the extra bits I do with no problems. I spent 11 hours on this yesterday only to be told it doesn’t work.

If you’re copying an image first you must free the extra space as I told Jannick yesterday through sudo raspi-config etc.

I just try to help people on here, I think it’s time to move on.

Al.

[Henri Spijkerman]

Hi there Al,

I believe you! And you are NOT 'only' the engine man! You may regard that as a title of honor and is not meant to put you down in any way. Thanks to you, I've spent ages with Picochess on my Pi's and loving every minute of it. I think Picochess is the BEST chesscomputer there is, with enormous possibilities and loads of options. I sincerely thank the writers of Picochess and you in particular for all the effort you have put and are putting into this wonderful project.

Yes, I was a bit frustrated about the 'good news' and maybe I showed that too much. At the moment I am trying all sorts of things to get the results you are having, but until now without much success. But please, let that not get into the way of the thankfullness for all that you learned me about Raspberry Pi's and Picochess....

Henri

[Henri Spijkerman]

Really can't get across the space issue.....

 *** Downloading specific firmware revision (this will take a few minutes)

  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   168    0   168    0     0    658      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--   656
100  114M  100  114M    0     0  2940k      0  0:00:39  0:00:39 --:--:-- 3404k
 *** Updating firmware

cp: error writing '/boot/kernel8.img': No space left on device
cp: error writing '/boot/kernel.img': No space left on device

pi@picobuster:/ $ df -h

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/root        15G  5.1G  8.9G  37% /
devtmpfs        1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs           2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           2.0G  8.4M  1.9G   1% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1   44M   44M  1.0K 100% /boot
tmpfs           391M     0  391M   0% /run/user/1000

[Jannick Kuijpers]

Henri,

Since we're both using the same image, and we both have similar problems, could it be that there is something wrong with our image file.  Because I did what Al told me twice and the time when I didn't knew how to enlarge the partition.  Anyways, tried this a total of 3 times, 2 times with the full size of my SD card used and it keeps giving me this error.

I agree with Henri, even when I am new here, I think you're doing a great job Al, so this is not criticism towards you, more like frustration that things that should normally work don't work., but like I said it might be the image file we're using.

Op do 26 sep. 2019 om 21:23 schreef Henri Spijkerman <hwspij...@gmail.com>:

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[Henri Spijkerman]

Ok, after reading a lot of forumposts and experimenting I think it boils down to this: The bootdirectory on the image converted from stretch to buster is not large enough to hold the new firmware on a Pi4. It has nothing to do with the rootdirectory, there is enough space on a 8gb sdcard.

Before the rpi-update on my Pi there was this statement:
"Partition size 43M may not be sufficient for new Pi4 files
This could result in a system that will not boot.
256M FAT partition is recommended. Ensure you have a backup if continuing."

Resizing the bootdirectory is necessary and (luckily) possible without losing the Picofiles on the root. I found the instructions in this post:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=244917

It took me two hours straight, but I managed to expand the boot-directory to 256 mb with GParted, enough for lots of future firmware-updates.

And yes, the voice is back in all glory, hallejulah :)

A new Picochess-image, made with buster on a Pi4 is the easiest way I guess. I honestly don't know how to compile one. The thought of Al being utterly disappointed in me made me want to solve this problem myself. Don't want to be a f***ing leecher!

Henri

[Jannick Kuijpers]

Thank you Henri,

I know we both use the same image, and I don't want to be a leecher too, but I had to search the internet fro GParted as it wasn't installed by default. So I found this link: https://raspberry-projects.com/pi/software_utilities/disk-tools/gparted

But that left me with the following error as I wanted to start the GUI as instructed, well they even said gparted needs the GUI as it needs root privileges (not sure if that's correct, because in my memory root privileges can be had from the prompt too, but I'm still learning linux / raspbian.

Anyway, I came across the following error after sudo startx.

sudo: unable to resolve host picobuster: Name or service not known
sudo: startx: command not found

Now that makes me think (and I'm too inexperienced yet that the user / pass combination pi / picochess isn't granting you the rights to load the GUI or to save diskspace on the drive the GUI isn't installed at all, this kinda makes more sense to me, except it also made me lost now (with my current knowledge)

So I got to ask, how did you manage to do this?  Because I want to keep doing the steps as they are described on that page or I should find another page, maybe they seem to discuss something like this in the comments too, but all the comments are slightly different and before burning myself on that I just had to ask here.

Op vr 27 sep. 2019 om 00:42 schreef Henri Spijkerman <hwspij...@gmail.com>:

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[Jannick Kuijpers]

I'm starting to think that this error sudo: unable to resolve host picobuster: Name or service not known could be one of the main things causing this.

But I could be entirely wrong about this, but yeah I managed to get root access with sudo su so I'm gonna check out more now.

Op vr 27 sep. 2019 om 07:53 schreef Jannick Kuijpers <radio...@gmail.com>:

[Henri Spijkerman]

The 'problem' is just a typo in the hostname: sudo raspi-config, option 2 (Network options), N1 (Hostname). Change the hostname to 'pico', save and it is ok.

Henri

Op vrijdag 27 september 2019 08:05:25 UTC+2 schreef RadioMan:

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[Jannick Kuijpers]

OK, that error is gone, but it still won't let me run sudo startx and if you run gparted as root you get the following error

Unit tmp.mount does not exist, proceeding anyway.

(gpartedbin:1111): Gtk-WARNING **: 10:53:42.020: cannot open display:

Now I'm guessing that cannot open display means the GUI, but I don't like to guess when being the superuser, so I just stop there.

[Scally]

Hi all,

Well done. You never said it was the boot partition that was running out of space, but nice find.

Strangely checking my converted Buster micro sd card in a RPi USB slot, reveals mine already has a boot partition of 253m (/dev/sda1 ) which is why mine works. Free Space is 5.5gb (/dev/sda2)
You can clearly see that the original micro sd card running Stretch has only a 41mb boot partition (/dev/mmcblk0p1) leaving 7.3gb on my card (/dev/root)

So I’ve lost 1.8gb on my micro sd card in the Buster upgrade.

Al@PicoChess:~ $ df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/root 30G 21G 7.3G 74% /
devtmpfs 460M 0 460M 0% /dev
tmpfs 464M 0 464M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 464M 6.3M 458M 2% /run

tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock

tmpfs 464M 0 464M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1 41M 23M 19M 54% /boot
tmpfs 93M 0 93M 0% /run/user/1000
/dev/sda1 253M 52M 201M 21% /mnt/bootsda
/dev/sda2 29G 22G 5.5G 81% /mnt/rootsda
Al@PicoChess:~ $

I haven’t run any boot partition resizes or anything, so guess I was lucky in the conversion somehow.

Anyway, we now have working Buster systems with speech and BT connectivity.

Al.

[Jannick Kuijpers]

I finally got the update done, I can hear voice now, but it quickly says 2 or 3 moves at startup, followed by new game and then it doesn't respond anymore.  So yes, voice is working but I can't move any pieces and neither can I change any settings either through the dgt3000 clock or the extra queens.

Maybe this rings a bell to you guys, but I am completely loss because I imagine this is not what it's supposed to do at all.  Also the clock doesn't take over the time from the computer either all it shows are --:--:-- on both sides only thing that seems to be doing something is the clock in the browser, showing you some settings.

Op vr 27 sep. 2019 om 11:12 schreef Scally <scall...@gmail.com>:

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[Jannick Kuijpers]

I think I broke it.  Right now it's beeping and saying Read Game, but the game is in starting position.

Op za 28 sep. 2019 om 11:19 schreef Jannick Kuijpers <radio...@gmail.com>:

[Jannick Kuijpers]

Well this was very weird, after numerous of tests it's finally working again.  I did completely setup the board again, so maybe that's what was meant with Read Game, but it's working now so I'm gonna stick with that.

Now that I got a working image, could someone please tell me what program to use to make a new image?

Op za 28 sep. 2019 om 15:08 schreef Jannick Kuijpers <radio...@gmail.com>:

[Scally]

Hi Jannick,

You can use any of these PC programs:

Win32DiskImager
dotNet Disk Imager
Etcher

I find Etcher is the best tool for me to write images to micro sd cards.

You can also backup to another micro sd card actually on the RPi with RPi-Clone, see:
https://github.com/billw2/rpi-clone

Al.

[Jannick Kuijpers]

I got etcher, but I don't think that can make images, only write them on sd card, will look at the other ones though.

Op za 28 sep. 2019 om 22:46 schreef Scally <scall...@gmail.com>:

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