quick help on new install

[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

I decided to play with the PiDP11 again, using a couple of headless Raspberry Pis. I installed the operating system no problems, no issues (latest Raspbien). I set up VNC and that works for access as well as SSH/putty. So no issues at all with Raspbien.

I used the newer install procedure from https://github.com/obsolescence/pidp11 and everything went as expected - no errors, no issues.

I can issue "pdp11control start 0102" to start BSD2.11 (my favorite), and "pdp11" to see it boot and run from the SSH/putty session. I can also do the same thing from a terminal window if I log in via VNC. I also see the red/DEC PDP11 desktop background.

What I DO NOT SEE is any desktop icons for the PiDP11. I don't see a pdp11control icon, and most disappointing - I don't see the VT52 icon. I know it installed because I answered yes to all questions (and saw the VT52 question) and again - no errors or problems with the install.

Any ideas how to get the desktop icons?

One note: installing Raspbien using the "Raspberry Pi Installer" gives the option of setting a default user account, which I now always do. At first I thought maybe an issue with me using "richard" instead of "pi", but I see the installer correctly gives me "pdp11control" and "pdp11" so it seems the installer has no problems with that. 

SO again: everything installed correctly. I'm at this moment running BSD2.11 on both machines and logged in to both BSD's as root. It's working fine, just no desktop shortcut icons for anything.

Thanks

[Steven A. Falco]

I don't know why you don't have the launcher icons, but I've attached a tar of the launcher files from my PiDP11.

Just do:

cd ~/Desktop
tar xvf desktop.icons.tar.gz

That should populate your Desktop with the necessary launcher files.

Steve

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[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

Brilliant! Thanks very much steve. They worked perfectly.

[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

This is more of a confirmation for some other conversations regarding "which Pi" for PiDP11. My recent install involved two of my very old Raspberry Pi boards - a Rasbberry Pi 2B and a Raspberry Pi 3. Using the Raspberry Pi Installer I re-flashed the original SD cards that I bought when I got these two some many years ago: The 2B I bought as a test Pi when the PiDP8 kit first came out and I bought/built one. The 3 I bought as a test Pi when the PiDP11 kit first came out and I bought/built one. The other 2B and 3 are still sitting in the PiDP8 and PiDP11. And yes, I have a Pi 5 in my PiDP10 currently running on my shelf.

I wanted to try the newer PiDP11 install without touching my (working) PiDP hardware units. I used the Raspberry Pi Imager as the fastest way to image the original SD cards (16G for the 2B and 32G for the 3), then fired up both Pis, updated Raspbien then got VNC and WIFI working (for some reason setting up WIFI in the RP Imager doesn't 'stick' on boot and I had to do it again in 'sudo raspi-config' before it would run on either board). The RPi2B has an Edimax WIFI dongle to get wifi, while the 3 has it built in on the motherboard. So I had to boot with wired internet then get WIFI running, which was easy with raspi-config.

With both Pis running WIFI and headless, I followed the latest instructions and installed the PiDP11 software with zero issues other than the lack of desktop icons as noted for this thread. Everything worked perfectly.

What I do note is, as very much expected, the Pi 2B is considerably slower than the Pi 3. Other things to note - the 2B requires much less power than the 3. I have a 5-port USB charger than runs the 2B without any issues, but the same charger won't run the 3 without the dreaded lightning bolt "low power" warning. Switching to a proper 2.5A charger fixed that, so I have a new dual 2.5A charger (2.5A on each socket) to run them once it comes. Overall I'm very happy with the PiDP11, but I must say the 2B is really almost too slow to use. I don't mind the 3 at all, even though a 4 or 5 would run rings around it. 

Anyway, I can confidently say you can run the PiDP11 headless on either a Pi 2B or Pi 3 without any issues. I know the Pi 3 was identical to the one that's inside my PiDP11 kit, so I also know it runs the hardware just fine.

-R

[Henry Bent]

Since I don't have a PiDP you'll have to forgive my ignorance here, but how is the SIMH build that you folks are running compiled?  There are lots of ways we could potentially get more speed out of SIMH; I have a lot of experience doing that.

-Henry

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[Malcolm Ray]

I reinstalled mine in mid-March. I note that install.sh appears to deal imperfectly with the situation where you're using a username other than 'pi'.

It starts promisingly, doing this:

myusername=$(whoami)

mygroup=$(id -g -n)

But then later, in several places, it refers explicitly to /home/pi

So it's a little broken...

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[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

Great catch Sheepless! I pulled a copy of install.sh into my PC editor where I can get a better look at it, and sure enough there are roughtly 3 areas that matter (more occurances but 3 areas):

first one, but works because also copied to /usr/local/bin...

            # setup 'pdp.sh' (script to return to screen with pidp11)
            # in home directory if it is not there yet
            test ! -L /home/pi/pdp.sh && ln -s /opt/pidp11/etc/pdp.sh /home/pi/pdp.sh
            # easier to use - just put a pdp11 command into /usr/local
            sudo ln -f -s /opt/pidp11/etc/pdp.sh /usr/local/bin/pdp11
            # the pdp11control script into /usr/local:
            sudo ln -f -s /opt/pidp11/bin/pdp11control.sh /usr/local/bin/pdp11control

second one,

                        test ! -f /home/pi/profile.foo && cp -p /home/pi/.profile /home/pi/profile.foo
                        #   add the line to .profile if not there yet
                        if grep -xq "pdp11 # autostart" /home/pi/.profile
                        then
                            echo .profile already contains pdp11 for autostart, OK.
                        else
                            sed -e "\$apdp11 # autostart" -i /home/pi/.profile
                        fi

And the last set which is what messes up the desktop stuff:

    read -p "Add VT-52 desktop icon and desktop settings? " prxn
    case $prxn in
        [Yy]* )
            cp /opt/pidp11/install/vt52.desktop /home/pi/Desktop/
            cp /opt/pidp11/install/vt52fullscreen.desktop /home/pi/Desktop/
            cp /opt/pidp11/install/tty.desktop /home/pi/Desktop/
            cp /opt/pidp11/install/tek.desktop /home/pi/Desktop/
            cp /opt/pidp11/install/pdp11control.desktop /home/pi/Desktop/

            #make pcmanf run on double click, change its config file
            config_file="/home/pi/.config/libfm/libfm.conf"

So not too bad, and as my system works OK, especially after adding the missing pieces sent in this thread, it's all good.

-R

[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

henry,

We don't (most of us, anyway) compile SIMH. It's a pre-compiled and well tested version that's included "ready to go" in the distribution that we 'git clone' from Oscar's github site.

-R

[Henry Bent]

Okay, so maybe I should talk to Oscar. I know that some of you folks are on very low powered hardware and I bet that I could get you a 20-30% speed up with some specific tuning.

-Henry

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[Mike Katz]

Where is the latest PiDP-11 install script and tar files?

Should I go to tangentsoft or is there a better repository somewhere?

Thanks...

[Steven A. Falco]

https://obsolescence.dev/pidp-11-building-instructions.html says:

Option #1: New from March 2025, latest version. Download the latest Raspberry Pi OS to your liking (64 bit is preferred), make sure to create the username 'pi', and bring the Raspberry Pi up to the point where you have an internet connection. Then:

cd /opt
sudo git clone https://github.com/obsolescence/pidp11
/opt/pidp11/install/install.sh

You can also visit https://github.com/obsolescence/pidp11 with a browser - there is more information there.

Steve

[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

As was pointed out to me (and I verified with examples) in a different thread, the install.sh script *almost* works for any user, but it is hard-wired to /home/pi in four places. The first doesn't matter as much as the scripts (pdp11control & pdp11) are copied to /usr/bin so work for anyone, the second & third I haven't delved into yet, and the last simply means the desktop shortcuts don't get copied to the desktop if you run install.sh as "not  user pi".

Great script though, I just went through this very process from "cold Pi" to fully-functional PiDP11 on both a Pi2B and a Pi3. Both work great. I do recommend the "Raspberry Pi Installer" as the best way to create the SD image in 2025. It's quick and quite painless.