Page 1 of 2

RevPi image based on Raspbian Lite?

Posted: 18 Dec 2017, 18:52
by simplelife2010
Dear all,

in my opinion the majority of potential professional applications for RevPi do not require a graphical desktop. I would like a Raspbial Lite-based RevPi-tailored image without X, desktop environment, and desktop applications.

Thoughts/opinions?

Bruno

Re: RevPi image based on Raspbian Lite?

Posted: 18 Dec 2017, 19:13
by volker
Many of our customers actually do still evaluate the Revolution Pi devices or are developing their application software for it. During this state many of them do love using the desktop and its applications. Many customers also do use X for their applications running with an HDMI touch screen. Therefore we will not reduce the delivered state of the distribution. But there are no limitations to tailor your own image. You do have full root right and everything you need to even compile your own kernel is published on GitHub. May be if there will be a great demand for such a reduced system we would tailor one.

Re: RevPi image based on Raspbian Lite?

Posted: 20 Dec 2017, 11:37
by simplelife2010
Hi Volker,

thanks for the reply. With the Raspberry Pi 3 I used to install the original Raspbian Lite distribution. For the RevPi, I see about two approaches:

1. Take the Kunbus image and purge all packages not needed
2. Install the original Raspbian Lite and add all packages specifically needed for RevPi

What's your recommendation?

Kind regards
Bruno

Re: RevPi image based on Raspbian Lite?

Posted: 20 Dec 2017, 12:23
by volker
You should go the first way because we are not talking about a few packages but about the kernel itself which needs to be replaced. We've applied lots of patches to make the system stable and minize jitter. It would need a deep Linux insight to apply these changes to your own image.

Re: RevPi image based on Raspbian Lite?

Posted: 20 Dec 2017, 14:08
by simplelife2010
As you suggested I just checked GitHub and found the imagebakery project. This is what the readme tells:

...
* Download latest Raspbian image, works with both normal and lite images:
curl -LO https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian_latest
unzip raspbian_latest
rm raspbian_latest
...

It seems that 1. this procedure is already updated to Raspbian Stretch, and 2. it allows to rely on a Raspbian Lite image version. My understanding is that it also relies on the Kunbus-customized kernel.

How about Option3 then:
Follow the procedure in https://github.com/RevolutionPi/imagebakery to get a Raspbian Stretch Lite based RevPi image.

Is this a viable option as well? If it is what it looks like, it's exactly what I need.

Kind regards
Bruno

Re: RevPi image based on Raspbian Lite?

Posted: 20 Dec 2017, 14:45
by volker
How about having a try? Our Linux expert who is in charge of the bakery is already in Xmas holidays so i can't tell you 100% reliable. But for me it looks like it shoulod work. as you can't damege anything but "only" need to invest some hours work why not just having a try. The bakery is for sure including our kernel patches.

Re: RevPi image based on Raspbian Lite?

Posted: 20 Dec 2017, 14:58
by lukas
simplelife2010 wrote: 20 Dec 2017, 14:08 How about Option3 then:
Follow the procedure in https://github.com/RevolutionPi/imagebakery to get a Raspbian Stretch Lite based RevPi image.
Is this a viable option as well? If it is what it looks like, it's exactly what I need.
Yes, building a lite image this way used to work with jessie, I haven't tested it with stretch yet.

Please note that building a stretch image requires you to apply the following small patch currently:

Code: Select all

diff --git a/customize_image.sh b/customize_image.sh
index 7a950ef..4fee08b 100755
--- a/customize_image.sh
+++ b/customize_image.sh
@@ -116,8 +116,8 @@ chroot $IMAGEDIR apt-get update
 chroot $IMAGEDIR apt-get -y install `egrep -v '^#' $BAKERYDIR/debs-to-download`
 dpkg --root $IMAGEDIR --force-depends --purge rpd-wallpaper
 chroot $IMAGEDIR apt-get -y install revpi-wallpaper
-chroot $IMAGEDIR apt-get update
-chroot $IMAGEDIR apt-get -y install teamviewer-revpi
+#chroot $IMAGEDIR apt-get update
+#chroot $IMAGEDIR apt-get -y install teamviewer-revpi
 chroot $IMAGEDIR apt-get clean
 
 if [ -e "$IMAGEDIR/etc/init.d/apache2" ] ; then
diff --git a/debs-to-download b/debs-to-download
index 03a760e..7cb6d60 100644
--- a/debs-to-download
+++ b/debs-to-download
@@ -6,8 +6,6 @@ revpi-webstatus
 pictory
 piserial
 pitest
-pimodbus-master
-pimodbus-slave
 tcpdump
 logi-rts
 spidercontrol
The reason is that we haven't found the time yet to compile pimodbus-master and pimodbus-slave for stretch and the TeamViewer APT repo can't be accessed from stretch for some reason. Sorry, the stretch image is currently in a sort of "half-baked" state (no pun intended).

You can alternatively checkout imagebakery commit 7c19f05da096 and build a jessie image to avoid patching manually.

Re: RevPi image based on Raspbian Lite?

Posted: 20 Dec 2017, 15:03
by simplelife2010
Excellent, I'll give it a try!

Merry christmas and a happy new year
Bruno

Re: RevPi image based on Raspbian Lite?

Posted: 15 Jan 2018, 10:34
by tmueller
I did this with the latest jessie image a couple weeks ago. Worked like a charm.
Just encountered one problem - the i2c-dev module is not enabled in the lite version. So you'll have to enable with raspi-config or edit the config file manually.

Re: RevPi image based on Raspbian Lite?

Posted: 16 Apr 2018, 09:06
by Heron
I also reduced my RevPI-Image to work without GUI by uninstalling X11 and its friends. I get 1.3 GB more space on hdd.
But my favor will be that kunbus will create (and maintain) a gui-less Image (its easier and more bug free ;)

Regards.