A very generic question on motioneyeos, raspberrypi os, motioneye

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Ed Tornick

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Dec 30, 2021, 10:02:49 AM12/30/21
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I have the raspberry pi 4 with 8 gig ram. I ran into booting issues when trying to boot the motioneyeos image. I tried a few of the fixes suggested on the motioneyeos site ( adding the recovery.elf file, startup4.elf, supplicant file etc). These fixes 'partially' worked.  The thread about this is at https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneyeos/issues/2419     Rather than using a stripped down image why wouldn't it be better to just use the full raspberry pi operating system image and just install the motion app and the motioneye web front end?  Is the purpose of the smaller image based on buildroot just for boards with less ram?  Any thoughts on this are appreciated.

Jack Rogers

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Dec 30, 2021, 10:25:01 AM12/30/21
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MotionEyeOS is stripped down for the sake of footprint size. It is also set up to optimize the limited graphic processing of devices like the Pi Zero.

If I've misstated any of that, someone please correct me.

And personally, I prefer working with a full-fledged OS when that's an option.

On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 9:02 AM Ed Tornick <etor...@gmail.com> wrote:
I have the raspberry pi 4 with 8 gig ram. I ran into booting issues when trying to boot the motioneyeos image. I tried a few of the fixes suggested on the motioneyeos site ( adding the recovery.elf file, startup4.elf, supplicant file etc). These fixes 'partially' worked.  The thread about this is at https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneyeos/issues/2419     Rather than using a stripped down image why wouldn't it be better to just use the full raspberry pi operating system image and just install the motion app and the motioneye web front end?  Is the purpose of the smaller image based on buildroot just for boards with less ram?  Any thoughts on this are appreciated.

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StarbaseSSD

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Dec 30, 2021, 10:27:21 AM12/30/21
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The motionEyeOS image is much faster overall because it doesn't have a ton of other apps, services, and support functionality that eats CPU resources. It's not quite a RealTimeOS, but responds better to video and snapshots. It also has a few dedicated features like Fast Network Camera that doesn't operate well if you are running an 'everything' OS.
As to Pi4-8GB, I have
pi@raspi5:~ $ sudo rpi-eeprom-update
BOOTLOADER: up to date
CURRENT: Thu 29 Apr 2021 04:11:25 PM UTC (1619712685)
LATEST: Thu 29 Apr 2021 04:11:25 PM UTC (1619712685)
RELEASE: default (/lib/firmware/raspberrypi/bootloader/default)
            Use raspi-config to change the release.
VL805_FW: Using bootloader EEPROM
VL805: up to date
CURRENT: 000138a1
LATEST: 000138a1
Installed dev20201026 to USB stick with wpa_supplicant.conf and ssh files. Changed cmdline.txt from root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 to /dev/sda2 to allow USB boot. Change not necessary if using SDCard.
Booted straight up, was able to add camera, and access SSH and WebGUI without issue.

StarbaseSSD

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Dec 30, 2021, 10:31:27 AM12/30/21
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Not just for footprint size but that is also another 'reason. And the graphics processing focus also applies to the other SBCs, not just to the Pi.
Not 'correcting' just expanding...


Jack Rogers

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Dec 30, 2021, 10:58:33 AM12/30/21
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Good points. You could also make a somewhat-weird case for security. Admittedly, I've complained about the inability to manage my own security patches with it, but on the other hand -- the MotionEyeOS device is a one-trick pony. It's essentially an appliance that does ONE thing. By limiting other functionality, they limit the potential vulnerabilities. As long as the maintainers monitor for, and manage their own vulnerabilities, end-users don't have to.

On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 9:31 AM StarbaseSSD <kevin.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
Not just for footprint size but that is also another 'reason. And the graphics processing focus also applies to the other SBCs, not just to the Pi.
Not 'correcting' just expanding...


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Ed Tornick

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Dec 30, 2021, 11:45:57 AM12/30/21
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Thank you so much for your insights. I looked at the Processes, CPU usage and memory usage of the pi 4 OS out of the box.  The CPU usage is about 0 to 1 percent at idle, memory usage is 196 meg.  Not sure why having all the os apps available but not executing hinders the performance of the board. Is there something I am missing there? 

StarbaseSSD

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Dec 30, 2021, 12:58:06 PM12/30/21
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Desktop vs Lite vs mEOS. You have all the shims, monitors, apps and such running with the Desktop (even when 'sleeping'). When you shift to Lite, you lose the Graphical Desktop and a couple of hundred applications taking up space even when not used, with hooks into the OS to watch for things happening so they can do their jobs. Lite still has a bunch of things going on that, for a NVR / system like motionEye aren't needed, so why have the hooks and apps taking up space unnecessarily? mEOS can run on a 2GB SDCard (I'd want a NAS or another storage drive) where you're hard pressed to find even a Lite that run on such a small drive. (I remember Puppy Linux and a couple of others and they still had graphical desktops)
I just dropped an image on a 2 GB USB drive for my Pi3B+, added wpa_supplicant.conf and ssh, and edited the cmdline.txt changed /dev/mmcblk0p2 to /dev/sda2) and booted. Got 125 processes running vs a fairly clean RPiOS Lite on Pi4-4GB with 172.
I always try to run a bare minimum system, and only add things as I actually need to them, personally. On most of my Pis, if I run Full Desktop, the first thing I rip out is LibreOffice, as I have other machines to do the Office Suite type things. I've run Kodi, RetroPi and I run motionEyeOS because they do 1 thing, do it well, and without the need for tons of 'fluff'. To each his own...

StarbaseSSD

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Dec 30, 2021, 1:04:19 PM12/30/21
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BTW, I oops'd on the 'running' comments. The processes show in ps auxw, but most are 'sleeping', for both the RPiOS and motionEyeOS systems. There are quite a few more 'active' vs 'sleeping' than in motionEyeOS.
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