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Edited by Bazmundi at 2017-6-21 21:45
I was building a node-red server on the Orange Pi Zero I bought. 512M with expansion and case.
The OPiZ kit I bought did not come with screws so the first experiments were carried out with the computer board - no expansion board attached.
It took a couple of days to get a copy of the "official" distro as the google drive link was non-existant and the other link was, I actually thought, broken but it was so dang slow so I worked out I had to wait 5 minutes for the webpage to draw. At first I started using the distro at the Armbian site.
I used debian server in both instances.
After re-burning the distros a couple of times, while I poked around looking at the lay of the land (and having to back out of broken installations), I settled on the armbian distro from OPiZ.
First up, apt-get failed to pull nodejs down so I had to do the binary install - which worked. I used apt-get to pull node-red onto the OPiZ and voila! I had node-red running. This failure to pull nodejs by apt-get happened both on "official" distro from OP site and the "semi-ficial" distro from armbian.
The apt-get problem with nodejs may or may not have been a problem with nodejs. Can't tell as the ethernet on the OPiZ appears to be flaky. At first I was sshing onto the OPiZ, via ethernet, using Tera Term which kept dropping connection (even after I set up static IP). I noted many people suggesting using the serial pins to debug the board but there is a perfectly good serial connection via the micro usb port which I had connected to a powered usb hub.
I then had mixed success with trying to get an MQTT server running on it. I downloaded and compiled erlang and then tried a few different servers that provided MQTT (emqttd and RabbitMQ).
That MQTT work is still work to go, especially now given the following.
As the OPiZ didn't come with screws to put the little box together I waited until today to get the screws and then *groan* the following quirky behaviours once I attached the expansion board.
So now this is with extension board attached
*** and remembaring both the "official" Ambian debin distro on the OPi site AND the "semi-ficial" one on the ambian site both worked on my OPiZ before I put the expansion board onto the base board ***
1) After I plugged in the expansion board the clean "official" distro on the SD card would not boot. I tried the distro direct from the ambian site and the OPiZ still booted. So distro from OPi would not boot their own board with their own extension board installed with a clean freshly burnt SD card. However, the distro from armbian direct still booted.
2) I took the expansion board off and tried the "official" distro again. However, OPiZ no longer boots using "official" distro with or without the expansion board in place. That is OPiZ booted first time using OPi distro (before I added OPi expansion board) but did not boot with expansion board in and now no longer boots with OPi distro.
3) With the expansion board off and a fresh clean distro direct from ambian on the SD, the machine still boots. That is OPiZ booted first time using Arbian distro from Armbian (before I added the OPi expansion board) and still does - you are saying "phew" for me at that point, but wait for it ...
... before I used the expansion board for the first time, I was able to use nmtui on both distros to set up static IP and hostname - dozens of times in fact as I burnt and reburnt SD to clean out the system as I worked through the setups for node-red and MQTT. After I took the expansion board out, Armbian runs nmtui. I can change the hostname, so nmtui runs, intial menu is happy to accept key commands to go to hostname change option, and exits. However, if I select connections item nmtui goes to the connextions page and hangs - does not react to key pressed. It ignores arrow keys, tab etc so you can jump around. It ignores CTL-Z, CTL-C etc so you cant exit. You have to pull the power to reboot.
This is quirky because, in all my experiments to set up node-red (before I tried the expansion card) I was happily firing up nmtui in both the "official" and the "semi-ficial" distros, setting static IP, changing host names etc.
So, all this in a couple of afternoons. I thought I was over the worst of it, I had node-red running, erlang AND elixir as I had settled on eqmttd. All I was going to do was do a clean build with the assembled computer. I did not expect the interaction with the expansion board and certainly can't explain the behaviour with the board removed. If the board was "fried" why is one distro working and one not?
I assume the the expansion board won't work with the Armbian distro from Armbian site? That is, it the expansion board needs to be configured when using the distro from Ambian site? I am assuming there is some interaction with the expansion board from the OPi distro to set something in NVM perhaps? That is, is there something now in NVM that is causing the problem? Is there someing in the NVM that needs clearing? Is there a factory reset for the board at all?
Anyone else seeing this quirky behaviour?
By the way. To check whether I had corrupted the "official" OPi distro on my PC, the one that no longer works, I deleted it off my PC and downloaded a new copy (with great pain as the "official" site dropped out during download about a dozen times). The new, freshly downloaded "official" OPi distro still no longer boots on the OPiZ with or without the expansion board in. That is, the problem I was seeing was not with a distro that got corrupted during my original experiments.
Cheers,
B
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