[App_rpt-users] Lessons being learned...

[Jim Aspinwall No1PC]

... and some 'crow' consumed per prior rant ... (trust me, does not taste like chicken, no matter how much tabasco...)

Issues and Challenges Taken Head-On... and some Take-Aways

- download and try to 'build' node(s) with prior or latest build- 'bad' supply, new low voltage errors
- enjoy the ease of asl-menu- why doesn't it recognize my eth0 and RA-40?


We often hear "bad card..."
- despite indeed some "bad card" attempts, changing methods allowed 'bad' cards to work.  Probably NOT a bad SD card or in my case USB sticks.  So far we can't even tell what specs/speed, etc. absolutely will work, absolutely will NOT work, or might work. We don't even know what internal schemes card makers employ in their products.   I'm checking out a couple of supposed flash memory device diagnostics to see if anything might be obvious.  I'm thinking a full-write and verify utility like h2testw (https://www.heise.de/download/product/h2testw-50539) may help - perhaps as a card 'conditioner' before writing an image to stick.  This will not be a short-delivery cycle diversion...
- I've variously used Win32DiskImager or Etcher in a wonderful Win10 workstation-class main PC... may be time to re-think that (haven't looked at Rufus, or unetbootin, etc. yet) and either seems to yield various results... but it's not very clear/apparent that various other system disk and USB I/O operations or just how Windows handles all of this.  

- before firing up a 'proper' Linux system to do all this with, or just use Raspbian on the Pi itself, I dug out my MacBook Air and Applepi-baker... which has proven quite consistent, reliable and happiness through over a dozen 'stick'/card image writes and saving images to reproduce to save time making other new nodes.  I know - who just happens to have a 'dusty' MacBook laying about?  Point is - is the problem Windows? The box x-nix is running on, or what?  Not quite sure.

- Bottom-line - unless you have a platform and tool you KNOW works, don't totally shame Windows - not there yet.


"It's Your Power Supply..."
- no, no it's not, unless/until it IS...  whether using a generic USB-wart of 1.5A, *the* accompanying 2.5A 'wart' with many Pi kits, or a PowerWerx USB Buddy 5v 3A DC device ... "low voltage error" still can/has appeared out of nowhere with clean 5.1v into the MicroUSB.  I've had no less than 4.93 at the connected RA-40 and 4.96 at the Pi - clean, scoped, flat DC.  The Pi should not 'react' until 4.65v.  

- if we determine, somehow, that there is something imposing noise on the 5v bus or the Pi's internal 3.3v... maybe we can preempt this with a suitably placed add-on filter or two.  TBD.


"asl-menu didn't work..."

- AH-HA!  Big thanks to Steve and Nate for sleuthing this one FAST!

- First take-away - start fresh - do NOT import any config files from "some other builds"

- Yet to be identified, parsed, handled is what the custom/undocumented (?) non-ASL configuration items are... (but certainly there are standard parameter lines we built and want... save those off and bring them in one at a time after you have a good basic working node...)  
- Even with a fresh start... well, see next point...

- It didn't know what to configure for 'eth0' because in some x-nix flavors, and the Pi, 'eth0' does not exist, but 'enxab12cd34ef56' does - the adapter "enx+MACaddress" - I don't know how or if this can be resolved... 'ifconfig' is your friend to get the 'NIC' identity to use for manual IP configuration steps.


"Why doesn't Asterisk/rpt see my radio interface device?"
- I don't have an answer for this one... back to the "bad SD card" conundrum perhaps... 

-------------------------------

Once I worked around and through the various challenges, I have established one good working node as a reference platform to clone, reproduce, edit, and deploy as a consistent upgrade for 4+ other nodes in our system.  I captured a working image with ApplePi-baker and made 6 additional core working sticks.  Onward!   

The goal is to off-load a handful of $400+ equally-oddly-custom-programmed multi-port controllers to reduce rack space, variables, power consumption... most interfaced with RA-35 or RA-40, and testing a newish comprehensive "pi-hat" out of Canada.  

I'm still working through a couple of points - mostly "cheat sheet" items to try and contribute yet-another-AllStar-how-to  (OMG!)  I've got 6-8 others lying about and they are all 'challenging' in many points - too assuming of knowledge of x-nix, paths, logs, scripts, permissions, skipping steps, apt-get, etc.  This is a $35 platform 10-year-olds get to work making robots and media servers... we can do this... yes?

Back to the rest of my 'crow' and following through.

Thanks for listening.
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