Debian on RIoTboard - After basic install, adding a GUI Desktop and other usefull stuff

RE: Debian on RIoTboard - After basic install, adding a GUI Desktop and other usefull stuff

DAB — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 19:39:34 GMT

Hi Peter,

Thank you very much. I have only been a casual Unix user, so I am just now building up the nerve to power up my RioT board for the first time.

I will make sure I follow you example very carefully.

DAB

RE: Debian on RIoTboard - After basic install, adding a GUI Desktop and other usefull stuff

mconners — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:55:52 GMT

Nice write up Peter.

Mike

RE: Debian on RIoTboard - After basic install, adding a GUI Desktop and other usefull stuff

Former Member — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 07:13:09 GMT

Peter,

There shouldn't be any need to manually run wpa_supplicant or dhclient. The base image includes startup for wpa_supplicant when you plug in a device that's detected as wlan0 and it uses a single instance of dhcpcd5 to manage both wireless and wired network interfaces. In theory all you need to do is to update wpa_supplicant.conf and either reboot or run "wpa_cli reconfigure" to tell wpa_supplicant to re-read the configuration file.

I'd be interested to know if the wifi interface comes up on it's own after a reboot without you needing to do anything manually.

RE: Debian on RIoTboard - After basic install, adding a GUI Desktop and other usefull stuff

Former Member — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 07:04:40 GMT

For anyone wondering, the partition on the image I made is something under 4GB so that it's possible for you to write it to eMMC. I'll be posting some updates soon which will include the patch to allow online resizing.

RE: Debian on RIoTboard - After basic install, adding a GUI Desktop and other usefull stuff

Robert Peter Oakes — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 20:41:01 GMT

LOL, should have asked before I blew like 20 hours on this, (Multiple failed attempts until I hot a technique to expand the card and the right scripts for the installs). BIG learning experience though so that's a good thing. Now I gotta figure out what do do with it an an IOT thingy. I think the term IoT has been heavily twisted over the last few years and therefore does not mean as much as it used to. I want to be able to use it as an internet gateway for my home automation devices, hence the need to install something like MQTT

Anyway, good luck to everybody trying this out, Id love to hear how far you all have gotten with your projects, especially the ones using Linux vs Android

Peter

RE: Debian on RIoTboard - After basic install, adding a GUI Desktop and other usefull stuff

radiatortwo — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 11:54:39 GMT

Really nice documentation.

But if you want to install a smaller GUI than GNOME (It really takes very long to install) you could just use LXDE together with lightdm instead.

Of course that depends on what you expect from the gui. LXDE is pretty minimalistic.