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Post by jhornbr225 on Jun 28, 2019 21:06:17 GMT -5
I remember you mentioning that you had picked up a cheap license. I was going to ask where, and how the experience was.
Well, when WIN7 support finally dies, I have a couple options. Put a fan on the AtomicPi, get one of those cheap WIN10 Home licenses, and then use that as my garage computer. Basically used for music, a little web browsing, looking at .pdf's of manuals for outdoor stuff, stuff like that.
Or get a Pi4 for out there, and try living with Linux.
I'll have 3 old car PC's that will basically become useless, they're WIN7, and not very powerful.
Hell, I've had half a mind lately to build myself a new screaming desktop for work. I'm liking this Ryzen stuff. My current box is AMD Phenom II 965 3.4GHz, 16GB of RAM, with an AMD Radeon HD5700 video card. I just hate having to install all my programs again. This box is 10 years old. But then I take a nap and forget about it, it still does everything I need, and does it pretty well, if you ask me.
I should be finishing this rush work project this weekend, then I can finally do some stuff that I need to get done. Then I can play.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 4, 2019 19:38:12 GMT -5
Couldn't resist. I was placing another Amazon order, for a part for the golf cart, and Atomic pi was $37.88 free shipping. Like I said, I might use one in the garage. I also could probably replace the Pi 3B+ in my Raspberry Pi Boombox. But then it wouldn't really be a Raspberry Pi Boombox anymore. Since the Pi 4 software is not really ready for prime time yet, at least as a media player.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 10, 2019 11:43:41 GMT -5
My second Atomic Pi arrived today. This one came from Florida. Free shipping, and I ordered it on the 3rd. Faster shipping even with the holiday.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 12, 2019 17:40:16 GMT -5
I've got the Atomic Pi out in the garage, running lubuntu, on the same monitor as the WIN7 PC that was already out there. WIN7 machine on the VGA, and APi on the DVI with a HDMI to DVI cable. I'm trying them in tandem to see if I can live with lubuntu, and how the performance is. Posting this from the Atomic Pi. I installed Chromium, and I'm currently running Pandora, and updating software all at the same time. Not running too bad. I put on an old wifi dongle that I had laying around since I don't have an antenna on the APi, and the router is on the other side of the garage, so wired Ethernet is out of the question. I'm showing no bars of signal strength most of the time, 2 bars other times, but it's still running OK. No fan on the heatsink, and it's not very warm. Seven port USB hub on the USB3.0, mouse, keyboard, wifi, and sound card, all running OK.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 15, 2019 14:07:35 GMT -5
Looking at the reddit posts about Atomic Pi, I see there is a version available from Digital Loggers with upgraded eMMC to 64GB. It's currently showing $57 and sold out. Since supposedly this was a batch of boards from a failed robot project, I wonder if they are manually re-working the boards?
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Post by COMpulse on Jul 16, 2019 8:03:37 GMT -5
Maybe they had an agreement to buy X number of boards/chips from suppliers, and are simply trying to fulfill that.
Or maybe they got enough interest in this little PC to order more and sell them in a way that makes them money. The hype for this thing was high.
Personally, I'm kind of 'meh' on the whole thing. I thought it would be cool, but I can do a lot more with a cheap mini-ITX system. My APi is still sitting on my desk, unused.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 16, 2019 12:45:29 GMT -5
I was out in the garage last night, working on a Civic for my brother. Had to do some web research on an ODBII code, and parts searching. Meant to use the APi, but the WIN7 machine was booted as well, and that's what I used for the web searches. The APi was playing the music. But I think, so far, for ordinary garage tasks, (Music, web browsing, .pdf manuals reading), the APi is snappier than the WIN7 machine.
My brother ended up getting a 3D printer for one of the kids for Christmas last year. I asked them last night if they had set it up yet. They said "It fits really well in the box". I've seen a couple 3D models of some cases on Thingiverse. I could modify to allow room for one of the silent Noctua 12V fans that I have, and I think it'd be perfect for out in the garage.
I do need to play with some samba shares (I think that's what they are called) to get it so that the APi can access the NAS attached to my router. That way I can share files. But so far, other than that, I think the APi is going to work out in the garage.
My customer called yesterday and wanted me to look at a drawing to tell him what part to order. He asked "are you near your computer? I emailed you a drawing." I said, "I'm in the garage". He thought that meant I wan't near a computer. He was amazed when I told him that I have 2 computers running in the garage at the moment. But after he thought about it for a moment, he figured out that "Why wouldn't he have a computer in the garage". Although admittedly, I did use the WIN7 machine to open the email. Old habits die hard. I'm going to have to consciously remind myself to use the APi more. I did create a bookmark in Chromium on the APi for my web based email, that's a good first step.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 18, 2019 13:36:41 GMT -5
Atomic Pi parts showed up today. I got the Wifi antennas, as well as a 4 port USB3 hub that I intend to use with it. That means I won't have to use the USB Wifi dongle anymore, and hopefully get a little stronger signal.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Aug 1, 2019 10:22:51 GMT -5
I added the Wifi antennas to my garage APi, and removed the Wifi USB dongle. I now have full signal strength on my APi!
I guess I'll have to modify a Thingiverse case. I'd like a fan, and holes to mount the Wifi antennas.
Currently Thingiverse appears to be down though.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Aug 4, 2019 10:01:59 GMT -5
OK, on lubuntu I went through the steps I found online to install samba, attach a profile, mount the sambashare location, and it didn't work. After that, every time I booted up I got a warning about a software problem, but no details on what the problem was. So I brought the APi inside so I can sit at my desk and work on it.
So I thought I'd try full ubuntu. I downloaded and installed it. It turns out, with stock ubuntu, I can see my NAS without messing around with adding any software, or any terminal command line stuff. I was even able to bookmark it in the file explorer for one click access. And after I access it the first time after I boot up, I get a desktop shortcut for the remainder of the current session.
It does hang on shutdown, but it appears to be a common problem. I just let it sit for a minute or so, then unplug the power supply. I do that now anyway in the garage with the WIN7 PC. After it shuts down, I shut off the power strip. (The WIN7 machine does shut down normally though). The monitor and the stereo are all plugged into the same power strip.
I can tell it's not as snappy as lubuntu, but it's definitely livable.
It opens .pdf files, I installed VLC to be able to play music off my NAS. I installed Chromium and Pandora works.
That's pretty much all I really need for a garage computer. Time to take it back outside and put it to the test.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Aug 4, 2019 18:28:32 GMT -5
Got the APi back in the garage, and hooked up. I've got my Chrome Bookmarks exported from the WIN7 PC, and imported into Chromium on the APi.
Amazon music is no longer supported on Chomium. I'd need to use Firefox or Chrome to use that. I was trying to get in the habit of using Amazon Music. I made a huge playlist, and set it to random. The problem is that I have to log into it every time I come out here. It is nice that there are no commercials though. Pandora is so easy, just click on the desktop shortcut...
I was trying to make a desktop shortcut to my Music folder on my NAS on the desktop. I have not figured it out yet. And with VLC, I can't seem to figure out how to navigate to my music folder on the NAS either. I can drag and drop music into VLC to play it, but that requires me to have both file explorer and VLC open. This APi does not have a big enough eMMC on it to locally store all my music like I did on the WIN7 box. So if my WiFi or network is down for some reason, there will be no music in the garage. I could add an external drive, but I'd rather not have to do that.
So, for the most part, so far so good. Nothing I can't live with.
Gotta get the 3D printer finished and print a case. It gets dusty out here. Plus, an open circuit board sitting on the seat of the yard tractor next to my computer and stereo area in the garage isn't really ideal.
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Post by revheadkev on Aug 4, 2019 21:28:54 GMT -5
How do you access the NAS ? Have you got a drive letter mapped to it ?
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Post by jhornbr225 on Aug 5, 2019 9:10:42 GMT -5
As far as I know, and I know very little about linux, is that there are not typical drive letter mappings, as we are used to in Windows.
From what I can tell, external drives get "mounted" and accessed through a folder.
There was button in the file explorer for "Additional locations", (I think that's what it was called), and that brought up some extra locations, and my NAS ended up being one of them. Once I accessed it, I got a desktop shortcut for it until I shutdown, as it wasn't there when I rebooted. But when I accessed it again, I get the shortcut back, so it's not a big deal. I was able to store a bookmark for my NAS in the File Explorer, so I don't have to click the Additional locations button.
I have tried to navigate to the folder that the NAS is supposedly mounted to, but have not had any success. I would like to be able to access it directly from VLC media player, instead of dragging and dropping mp3 files into VLC to play them.
So until I figure out how to do it, or someone on here who knows linux chimes in, this will work.
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Post by revheadkev on Aug 6, 2019 7:36:58 GMT -5
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Post by jhornbr225 on Aug 6, 2019 15:10:38 GMT -5
I have not done any real searching on the issue yet.
I don't think that article applies to my problem. It's not that I can't play the media, it's when I try to navigate to it, I can't find it.
I suppose it would be best if I took a couple screenshots and posted them here.
Atomic Pi is out in the garage, and it's about to thunderstorm.
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