O-pi Arch OS in Model 5B

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8Geee
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O-pi Arch OS in Model 5B

Post by 8Geee »

My O-pi 5b and case arrived today, the 14" 1200x1920 monitor Friday. The wall-wart still to come. I took the liberty of D/L Balena Etcher 32-bit and burning the OS to a 32Gb Class 10 A1 U1 microSD as a test. I ordered and received two 32Gb A2 U3 chips.

*** Side Note: After running Etcher, I really don't need it hanging around taking up 230Mb in Slacko7.0... but UNinstall not an option, and there is NO file list. So that means RELOAD Slacko-7.0. Such a wasteful mindset. Nonetheless, I saved a copy of appimage, 32bit getting scarce. Thanks and Kudos to those that made UExtract. ***

After about 1 hour, the complete process was finished including verify. I looked inside the 7.7Gb distro (yup 7 times the size of AP-23 and 15x AP21). Its arranged into apparent boot/root partitions. Root section familiar looking, but things are arranged different. I noted FF-112 installed (Apr. '23), I might upgrade to FF-115esr when I get a-round-tuit.

Today was the better day to assemble the metal case and place board inside. This case is a model 505 case for the Opi 5 and 5b having two holes for wifi/BT antenna. Sturdy and rather well made. The heatsinks are glued to the board elements by me... not by manufacturer. Manual installation w/o hold-down screws. Steady hands needed!!! Got that done, then the replacement wifi antenna. This meant popping off the originals and replacing. NOT EASY, and one of my replacements was damaged, so I have one original and one replacement. And of course after the case was assembled I find that the micro-SD slot and porthole for that after-thought power button not perfectly lined up. No routing/endmilling needed, but close. Fortuneately I have a mechanical pencil from the 1980's (that I still use!) that can acutate said after-thought power button.

Price List:
O-Pi 5b $105
14" Monitor $98
Case $20
A2U3 Chips $2.50 ea. (Store-brand you might say, not a knockoff or fake)
Wall wart $7
pd Charger to power monitor $7

END part 1

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Re: O-pi Arch OS in Model 5B

Post by 8Geee »

I got the wallwart and decided on a fresh start this AM. There are SNAFU's notably the Opi does NOT remember that BT is enabled. This requires a mouse to setup and several attempts to hookup the BT keyboard. Patience is needed. Also, the original U1A1 32Gb chip was too slow. I had to rerun balena etcher, and put the OS on the U2A2 chip... wow what a difference. fast. Of course, I Will be configuring FF112. More time needed there.

NOTES:
The BT keyboard has a firm feel-- not for speed typing, but not just for thumbs.
Monitor is VERY nice even at defaults. Web pages "small" but quite readable.
My internet speed has increased 3-fold from 32Mb to the full 100Mb

So on with the FF config [done, i think] 1055edt usa
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Re: O-pi Arch OS in Model 5B

Post by 8Geee »

So after a few days with it, "I am a Criminal".

ARCH puts me in jail, and by default protects me from myself.
plugging in a storage device is met with "You are not Authorized".
And of course... I'm a user, not admin.

XWayland mixed with FF112 breaks frequently, causing restarts of browser. solved

BT keyboard takes 2-60 minutes to be found... of course that privacy sieve wifi autoloads, but not the locally risky BT. Thankkfully theres LAN/WAN.

So if you like the standard user-paranoia with heaps of outside snooping, enjoy.
Puppy is NOT going away anytime soon. Meanwhile a wired usb keyboard would help the login wait for the BT version. NOW THERE's A STEP FORWARDS!!! :roll:

BTW: email request to join the O-pi community have
a.) not been returned, or
b.) tossed as spam/junk by my e-mail cli.
Its beginning to smell a bit rotten.

Regards
8Geee

Last edited by 8Geee on Mon Jul 17, 2023 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: O-pi Arch OS in Model 5B

Post by 8Geee »

Fixed the browser hangs/no-response. Seems network.prefetch was set to false (off). I think it came that way from ARCH.

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Re: O-pi Arch OS in Model 5B

Post by 8Geee »

I'm about 2 months into this, and not using any sudo apt gets, its behaving rather well. THERE IS A DROPOUT PROBLEM IN VIDS AND AUDIO. Audio gets clicky because of it. The Realtek-269 in the Atom netbook is much better. BT keyboard fine for GP uses.

All in all a fine advance from the Atom N470 single core and ddr2-667. :shock:

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8Geee

Money talks... no, it shouts, so that it doesn't have to hear common sense.

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