mpf-mc (legacy) installation on rpi3

[Marc Rechté]

Hello. I am struggling to install mpf-mc on a raspberry Pi3. The problem is with cython code in mpfmc/core/audio/: for 2 files (sound_file.pyx and audio_interface.pyx) it complains  (existing) files don't exist. For instance:

...

cythoning mpfmc/core/audio/sound_file.pyx to mpfmc/core/audio/sound_file.c

      Error compiling Cython file:
      ------------------------------------------------------------
      ...
      cimport cpython.pycapsule as pycapsule
      import logging
      import os
     
      from mpfmc.core.audio.audio_exception import AudioException
      from mpfmc.core.audio.sdl2 cimport *
      ^
      ------------------------------------------------------------
     

mpfmc/core/audio/sound_file.pyx:10:0: 'mpfmc/core/audio/sdl2.pxd' not found

I don't understand that other .pyx files where cytonized with the same cimports...

In setup.py:7 there is a comment: "TODO: this setup has only been tested with the .c files already generated by cython. No idea if it works with the .pyx files yet."

Any idea how to fix this ?

Thanks

[Anthony van Winkle]

I'll be blunt: it's not going to work.

Raspberry Pi is strongly discouraged as a platform, and is only suitable for people who like low-level operating system fiddling and understand graphics layers and linux configurations. Even then, the RPi4 is suitable only for games without substantial graphics, as the MC is horribly inefficient and rigid. The MC and RPi just don't get along, and certainly the RPi3 is never going to be able to do anything useful.

The bare minimum for success would be an RPi5 and the GMC, which can generate optimized builds that run on the RPi hardware natively. This still requires a lot of know-how and patience, and is still discouraged. The only reasonable time to use a Pi for MPF is on a segment-display-and-chime game that runs pure MPF without any software-driven media. 

[Marc Rechté]

I did not notice that generated .c files are distributed with the source code. I don't now for what reason they have been overridden by empty files during the build process. I just reset the mpf-mc git repo, and eventually managed to generate the package.

I need mpf-mc to drive a DMD and hope a rpi3 will be enough for that purpose.