OS Feature Requests/Tips

  1. Im assuming most of your user base is in the US (maybe set the default user base to US)

  2. In wpasupplicant.conf

    a.) add “” (quotes) around the password I cant seem to get it to work without quotes, and can save a newbie a lot of time and frustrsation

    b.) make example password shorter :slight_smile: if your editing the default file on the RPi with a keyboard like I am, its just a simple well deserved change so I don’t to hold down backspace for 30 characters or so

  3. Add a /etc/apt/preferences file such that the default emlid/raspbian repos will not be overwritten if additional repos are added (sort of a failsafe to help prevent breaking kernel)

*side note- Im not exactly sure how you’ve gotten the emlid links to work as it is not listed in the sources?

  1. Create a script to easily add & remove PIXEL desktop, while it is clear this OS is meant to run headless, in many cases installing the desktop for experimenting and easier editing. Then having a way to uninstall it could be very. This could be very useful to some users, or save others a lot of frustration if they are not familiar with linux (helps to streamline/mainstream setup of your product)

  2. Add sources for gstreamer (I don’t think these are included?) I might be wrong

  3. Install iproute2 by default (technically ifconfig is deprecated) and especially with the interest in using wifi for different functions having users more familiar with iproute2 would not be bad. It’s not hard to install by yourself but would just be a nice touch.

RESEARCHING AND WILL UPDATE SOON

Discovered where emlid files reside inside etc/apt/sources.list.d (modern method) which brings up another question (I realize it is raspbian itself that is setup like this) but why would the main jessie be separate from the ui mods.

Would there appear to be any harm in moving the jessie main into the raspi.list?

In either case

adding preferences files to /etc/apt/preferences.d would be the next step

you could setup files in these ways (just my example ideas)

etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list (jessie main, ui mods)
etc/apt/sources.list.d/emlid.list (emlid)
etc/apt/sources.list.d/stretch.list (stretch) – just an example using raspbian experimental files

/etc/apt/preferences.d/raspi.list (pin-priority: 700)
fairly high, though less than jessie main if these can both be 800 no conflict. Idk why there would be a conflict, then you could just put them both in the same list in the first place

/etc/apt/preferences.d/jessie.pref (pin-priority: 800)
higher spectrum of normal behavior, 990 is max before behavior changes

/etc/apt/preferences.d/emlid.pref (pin-priority: 900)
extremely high

at this point unless you screw around with your system, and mess something up very badly adding other repos should be pretty safe and it should be pretty hard to corrupt the kernel. (correct me if I’m wrong, maybe the kernel can still be overwritten)

and my example

/etc/apt/preferences.d/stretch.pref pin-priority: value >=1 for example -1
this value makes it so you only install packages from this repo if specifically told to do so

ex. sudo apt-get install -t stretch packagename

although the whole point of doing this is even if you gave it a low value (e.x. 200) which has less privileges and lower priority the chances of breaking the system by accidental updates is very hard

I recommend the -1 as the only reason you should have to add other repos is if there is a specific package you want from them, they generally should not serve as part of your workflow. At which case theoretically you only need to add the stretch.list and stretch.pref (example files, rename as needed). I gave example configurations for the rest, in case for some very odd reason you were to give it a value above 1.

I have tried to explain it as best as I can and I’m sure I have made plenty of run on sentences at this point. If you have any specific questions feel free to ask or reference the man/wiki pages.

https://manpages.debian.org/jessie/apt/apt_preferences.5.en.html
AptConfiguration - Debian Wiki

Wouldn’t be so sure!

Sure. I wanted to point out, though that there’s two options to specify password with wpa_supplicant: password hash (uncommented one) and a password in quotes (commented out). This is the default output of wpa_passphrase utility that is meant to populate the config.

There’s already a simple step-by-step tutorial on our forum how to get it done. But it’s buried in the middle of other stuff. We’ll make it more straightforward for sure. But there’s no need to add new scripts as it’s a apt-get install one-liner.

Noted. Thanks! Even though, I personally believe it will just consume a lot of storage without any significant gain for the majority of users. I guess people that are trying to add code using a project of such colossal complexity will figure out a simple sudo apt-get install libgstreamer0.10-dev, won’t they?

This has been installed since like the 2000s in Debian-based distros. I don’t think we’ll purge ifconfig as it’s way more popular even today. There’s no need to, also. People that need to set up anything unusual that is not easy to be done with the older utilities will just use iproute2 tools. AFAIK even modern Ubuntus have ifconfig installed by default. Arch has dropped it a while back but… Okay, I think I’ll stop it right here because I reckon I made myself clear :slight_smile: (I don’t like ifconfig and feel your pain. How one is even supposed to parse the output of this thing?)

All of your other suggestions will be taken into account. Thanks! Although, unfortunately it’s a little more complicated.

Thank you once again for digging into our work. I really appreciate all the work you’ve done.