Noob questions, please?

technogeezer · Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:03 pm

Greetings,

I thought I had this bright idea to use my RPi for a light show controller with my band. I figured it would take months to work out the details. Then I found QLC+. It appears that most of the work has been done!

But I have a couple of questions, please.

* What does this mean (listed on RPi features page) - " Xorg is not present in the image."?

* Is there an alternative to paypal? I've had issues between them and my card company.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Sorry if this has been asked already.

I really don't want to spend months figuring out how to build an image and where to get drivers, and all the other developer stuff. Heck, I do that for a living. Don't need it ALL day! QLC+ could be exactly what I need.

Thanks so much

mcallegari · Tue Jul 11, 2017 3:06 pm

* What does this mean (listed on RPi features page) - " Xorg is not present in the image."?

Xorg is the most used input/graphics server in the Linux world. On top of it there is usually a window manager.
The RPi image doesn't have any of that, because by default QLC+ is the only application running and it goes fullscreen.
The only downside effect is that it doesn't feel like a desktop PC environment, but the image is not actually meant to be used as if it was a desktop PC.

* Is there an alternative to paypal? I've had issues between them and my card company.

No sorry.

technogeezer · Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:59 pm

I turn on the Pi and I see the screen scroll and the last line printed is

Debian GNU/Linux 8 Raspberry pi tty1

I can log in and that's it. If I type 'ls', nothing lists.

I can't access via any web browser. Says connection refused. Does the Pi *need* an address with zero as the third digit, i.e. 192.168.0.xxx?

When I power up with a regular debian card, the Pi works normally.

Any suggestions?

Thanks so much.

mcallegari · Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:37 am

Which Raspberry model do you have ?
Which image version are you running ?

The latest image needs some manual adjustment to run on RPi 1 / Zero / Zero W models. See here.

technogeezer · Thu Jul 13, 2017 11:07 am

Sorry I didn't have more info.

My Pi is a model 2 B. I don't know which version it is but I think it's 1.2.

The image version is the one you told me to download in the email, 20170624. I received the email yesterday, 20170712.

Upon further research I found where QLC resides. I tried /usr/bin/qlcplus and the Pi returned 'invalid command'.

Qlcplus exists in the /usr/bin directory.

I can ping the Pi. Zero loss, all good. I can not access the web page, connection refused.

Thanks for your time.

mcallegari · Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:14 pm

Maybe the flashed image is corrupted or the SD card is about to die.
Have you tried to flash it again on the SD card or onto another SD card ?

technogeezer · Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:24 pm

Brand new 8G SanDisk flash card. Not at the Pi right now. I'll try another card later.

Flashed the card twice from scratch.

Has anyone else been successful with that version I specified?

Linux is running for sure. It's just QLC+ that isn't working.

mcallegari · Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:37 pm

I tried /usr/bin/qlcplus and the Pi returned 'invalid command'.

I think that's indeed the issue.
Have you tried to update the Qt libraries with the command of the thread I linked above ?

technogeezer · Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:44 pm

No, since that was not for my version of Pi.

However, when I get to the Pi, I can try that.

Has anyone verified the distro?

mcallegari · Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:24 pm

Just checked on my RPi 2.
Both original image and image + Qt 5.9.1 works OK.

Check also the img file against the provided MD5 sum.

technogeezer · Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:15 pm

What is the "Chapter 10" you mention in the other thread about QT? Can I simply type the given command?

janosvitok · Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:52 pm

Chapter 10 is included in PDF manual you got with the download link.

technogeezer · Thu Jul 13, 2017 8:59 pm

Please, what did I pay for? This was supposed to be a drop-in.

I can flash cards and operate the Pi but I can't figure out what QLC+ expects from me. I paid to avoid having to figure all this stuff out myself.

When I try to update qt, I can't see the command line because of the overscan.

I can't adjust the overscan because I can't see enough of the file to edit it.

I can't get to the Pi over my LAN because it refuses connection.

C'mon guys.

Rant Off

technogeezer · Thu Jul 13, 2017 9:51 pm

I flashed my other new, identical card and operation is exactly the same as I first described.

I tried raspi-config and fixing overscan there doesn't work.

mcallegari · Fri Jul 14, 2017 9:58 am

Instead of ranting, why don't you read what we write ?

You can write 1000 different cards, but if the file you downloaded is corrupted, then you'll get always the same result.

Again, check the 7z file downloaded with the MD5 provided. The following commands should give you the same result:

Code: Select all

cat qlcplus_raspbian_jessie_20170624.7z.md5
md5sum qlcplus_raspbian_jessie_20170624.7z

If they don't, download again the image 7z file.

technogeezer · Fri Jul 14, 2017 11:04 am

What year is this? The last time I had a corrupted download was in the 1990s!

I downloaded the file three times. If the file isn't clean after three tries, will it ever be?

I am away from my Pi for a few days. If the MD5 shows corruption, what happens then?

mcallegari · Fri Jul 14, 2017 3:11 pm

Listen, I'm trying to help.
If you're only goal here is to entertain us with your poor sarcasm, then I'm definitely wasting my time.

Just for the sake of it, I downloaded the image and checked the MD5. As I expected, it is correct, so you're definitely doing something wrong, maybe in flashing the image on the SD card.
As I said, I booted the image on my RPi 2 and it's all OK, so, on my end, there's no issue.

If you wish to be refunded, just let me know.

technogeezer · Mon Jul 17, 2017 7:30 pm

OK, slow down, take a deep breath, and go back and read how I began this thread.

Not everyone is a Linux/Pi expert, as you seem to expect your customers to be.

Here's a list of completely avoidable issues you did not cover in your documentation.

The flashed card can be inserted into a windows box for directly editing the config.txt file, for fixing the overscan issues.

Your QT fix references a post where the Pi models listed specifically EXCLUDE the Pi version I gave you.

Chapter 10 specifically states, "to users that are comfortable" - which I am not, being mostly a windows nerd. You never stated that this step was MANDATORY. In addition, only a small subset of those instructions were actually required, something you also failed to mention.

I can not read your mind. You could have prevented this whole conversation if you had simply updated your user manual with the steps above. (BTW, the list of subtopics at the beginning of the manual is out of order.)

As of now, everything works perfectly. I suspect your Pi 2 is a different version.

The money is well spent. Thanks for your time. I spent a lot of mine also.

P.S. Chases are nice but I think sequences would work better for me since I can put all of my channels on the screen at once. But sequences don't seem to work as I'd expect, I can't figure out how to make sequences work the way I want, and they are not well covered in the manual, AFAICT.