Tag: 3366ff

moving back to raspberry pi os on the raspberry pi 5

whbeebe1 Comment
HiLetgo MAX7219 Dot Matrix Module attached to a Raspberry Pi connector

You’re looking at a very simple circuit diagram, where I’ve wired a HiLetgo MAX7219 Dot Matrix Module to the Raspberry Pi 5 via its 40 pin connector. In spite of the add for the module on Amazon (see below) it works just fine with the Raspberry Pi and a Python library, Luma.LED_Matrix, I found on the web (see links below).

Amazon entry for HiLetgo module

All I wanted to do was hook up one of these inexpensive four-character modules to a Raspberry Pi 5 and scroll text across it using Luma.LED_Matrix. It does not work with Ubuntu 23.10. It works just fine with the latest release of Debian GNU/Linux 12, a.k.a. Raspberry Pi OS. The problem is that Ubuntu 23.10 does not enable the SPI kernel drivers. Raspberry Pi OS does.

All SPI devices under Raspberry Pi OS on Raspberry Pi 5

The screen capture above shows what the SPI devices will appear as in the dev file system if the kernel drivers are properly configured for the SPI peripherals. When you try this on Ubuntu all that is shown is /dev/spidev10.0. The other two devices are missing.

There’s not much more to say at this point except I am extremely aggravated to have to back down to Raspberry Pi OS. Ubuntu 23.10 is a gorgeous UI and a highly performant distribution on the Raspberry Pi 5. Getting it set up was no different than on an x86-64 system, and once set up was indistinguishable from normal Ubuntu. All the tools worked, especially Visual Studio Code, and I was developing command line tools written in Rust. It was a breeze doing anything non-trivial. Until I tried physical computing, at which point Ubuntu’s limitations in those areas became evident.

It’s not a problem to physically switch between operating systems. I just don’t want to, and based on my experience so far with Ubuntu 23.10, I will be dragged back kicking and screaming to Raspberry Pi OS on the Raspberry Pi 5. As soon as I can come up with a good solution to this mess, I’ll post it.

Links

Luma.LED_Matrix — https://github.com/rm-hull/luma.led_matrix

moving back to raspbian 64 bit, dropping work on wiringpi

i must have been drunk at the time

whbeebe

Once upon a time, way back in 2004 (yes, 20 years ago now), I signed up for a Live Journal account and then completely forgot about it. That is, until 31 December 2023 when Live Journal sent me this reminder of my 19th anniversary. Lucky me. I don’t normally check on my Yahoo mail account all that often. It is, shall we say, my low-value email account I give to low-value organizations such as Live Journal. Or Disney… but I digress.

Anyway, I decided to check out what it was like, because believe me, I had totally forgotten it was there. So I clicked the link to look, and got the following:

Live Journal wanted me to log in, and amazingly I still remembered the password, which is a massive security no-no; if you can remember a password from 20 years ago, it means you should change it ASAP if for no other reason than it’s probably all over the dark web by now. And Live Journal agreed with that sentiment, telling me it was “out of date” and to reset it. So I did.

I accepted the new and improved user agreement, which among other things allowed Live Journal and its agents to harvest my organs when I die, among other actions.

Once in I discovered that I’d created exactly four entries, two of them dupes, back on 31 December 2004. The handle invader_moose was my youngest daughter, who was a big fan of Invader Zim and riffed off the show’s name. The first entry at the bottom explains it all. Unfortunately, after trying out exactly four posts I promptly forgot about it and moved on with other more exciting life adventures.

I will not post anything new to Live Journal, unless it’s to troll, and I’ve got better things to do with my time. If you want to know why Live Journal is so radioactive social-media wise (even more than Twitter X), then read the link below.

Links

Whatever Happened to LiveJournal? — https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/postscript/whatever-happened-livejournal/