Peter over at Raspihub is trying to bring together as many Raspberry Pi news sources as possible together in a dashboard-style hub. If you have any links to blogs (or RSS feeds) that you’d like to get more audience, please go over to the site and send him feedback!
Fewer people this time at the Milton Keynes Raspberry Jam, which we decided was mostly due to this being most school’s half term (one week holiday, for those not in the UK). However, it was a very busy couple of hours. Lots of projects were shown, including my PiPodCorder.
Other projects which we saw were:
Peter also treated us to a mini-masterclass in soldering – how to do it, how not to do it and how not to destroy anything in the process. I’ll post a video here or over at Raspi.tv of the mini-course.
Suffice to say, those of us who watched the class got a lot out of it and I fully expect all of us to have soldered something new by the end of the week!
The next Jam will be in November, then Peter’s planning to skip December and hold one in early January and one in late January to make up for it.
Met a few new people at the Jam, including a family from Stevenage who are going to use the Pi during half term for both hardware and software projects.
Also in attendance was David Taylor from Cyntech who have recently started to develop a series of products for the Raspberry Pi including a very fashionable new case. The case is a much snugger fit than the ModMyPi cases and includes a slit on the side for the GPIO cable. We were also given hints at a few of their upcoming products which show that these guys are really thinking about the Pi community and how to support us.
Just reblogging this – it’s a video of “MonoGame” running on the Pi.
MonoGame 3D on the Raspberry Pi #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi « adafruit industries blog.
Sinatra and Haml over at Gadgetoid have a Raspberry Pi blog which is actually hosted on a Pi!
The only pity is there doesn’t seem to be an RSS feed. If there was, I’d add it to the aggregated feed. But there isn’t, so I can’t! :p
![[Phoronix] Raspberry Pi GPU Driver Turns Out To Be Crap](/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Architecture-and-Source-266x3001.png)
Very out of my depth on this one, but here is the announcement from the Foundation. At first glance, it appears to be a huge step forward, but others have taken this as an opportunity to heap abuse and criticism on the Foundation. This article over at Phoronix: Raspberry Pi GPU Driver Turns Out To Be Crap sums it up and links to a couple of other articles. Apparently, the abuse has been quite shocking on Twitter.
I say we should be grateful the Foundation has released anything at all. I wouldn’t know what to do with it, but it sounds like a step forward even if it’s not the whole shebang as developers have been asking for.
Once again, I think the only criticism that can be aimed at the Foundation is a lack of editorial control, especially with their headlines. There’s rather too much small print and information-on-the-side about this for my liking – apparently, Eben and Liz have been quite clear about what has actuallybeen released but the
information is spread out far and wide. As always, responses to criticisms have been met with the usual sarcasm (“We don’t want you developing an ulcer” quips Liz) and snide remarks, and as always the complainers are expected to take these remarks and ignore them, lest they get banned, blocked or otherwise covered in hot lead.
![[Phoronix] Raspberry Pi GPU Driver Turns Out To Be Crap](/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/thumbs-up1.jpg)
Lack of public relations skills aside, however, the Foundation has done a good thing here. If you can’t feel grateful, at least give them credit for moving things forward when they didn’t have to.
I’ve had a successful time getting the Pi set-up as a Wifi access point. The end result is an access point running on one wifi dongle, bridged to a second wifi dongle for an internet connection. This means that I can connect a phone to the Pi using an adhoc wireless network connection.
For the access point dongle, I am using an old AzureWave AW-NU221 dongle. It’s an ugly white plastic thing that’s definitely NOT a ‘nano’ dongle. This dongle is known on my system as wlan3.
For the bridged wifi dongle, I’m using the good old reliable Edimax. This is known as wlan0.
Be aware that all my scripts are stored in /boot/redwing-pi and that I am logged in as root when I run it!
Here is a script to install everything you need and to walk you through the set-up.
#!/bin/bash clear echo "Redwing Access Point installer" echo "(c) Michael Horne 2012 / Recantha" echo "Please note all responses requested are Case Sensitive" echo "" echo "SPECIFY WIRELESS DEVICE" # DEBUGGING MODE - set to something other than hostapd.conf HOSTAPDFILE=hostapd.conf # List devices iwconfig 2>/dev/null | grep wlan echo "Please type in the name of the wlan device to use as the access point" read WLAN echo "Type in the name of the wifi driver. This is normally nl80211 but may vary. You can always change this later by modifying the hostapd.conf file" read DRIVER echo "Type in the name of the access point you wish to create" read SSID echo "Type in the passphrase for the access point" read PASSPHRASE echo "PACKAGE INSTALLATION" echo "There are a fair few packages that need to be installed. Some of these may require you to confirm their installation" echo "Press any key" read -n1 -s IGNORE apt-get update apt-get install hostapd apt-get install dnsmasq apt-get install dhcpd apt-get install wireless-tools hostapd bridge-utils echo "" echo "Using $WLAN for the access point" echo "" # HOSTAPD SECTION echo "Generating the hostapd.conf file" # Create the hostapd.conf file echo "" > $HOSTAPDFILE echo "interface=$WLAN" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "driver=$DRIVER" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "ctrl_interface_group=0" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "ssid=$SSID" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "hw_mode=g" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "channel=10" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "wpa=3" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "wpa_passphrase=$PASSPHRASE" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "wpa_pairwise=TKIP" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "rsn_pairwise=CCMP" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "beacon_int=100" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "auth_algs=3" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "wmm_enabled=1" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "" >> $HOSTAPDFILE echo "" echo "Do you want to change the system so it uses the hostpad.conf file just generated? (Do this ONCE and ONCE only)" read -n1 -s CONFIRM if [ "$CONFIRM" == "Y" ];then echo "DAEMON_CONF="/boot/redwing-pi/access_point/hostapd.conf"" >> /etc/default/hostapd fi echo "Do you want to route the IP tables for network forwarding? [Y to do it]" read -n1 -s CONFIRM if [ "$CONFIRM" == "Y" ];then iptables -A FORWARD -i $WLAN -o wlan0 -s 10.0.0.0/24 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT iptables -A FORWARD -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT iptables -A POSTROUTING -t nat -j MASQUERADE sh -c "echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward" fi echo "Do you want to set /etc/network/interfaces for the access point (wlan3)? (Do this ONCE and only ONCE) [Y to do it]" read -n1 -s CONFIRM if [ "$CONFIRM" == "Y" ];then echo "" >> /etc/network/interfaces echo "auto $WLAN" >> /etc/network/interfaces echo "iface $WLAN inet static" >> /etc/network/interfaces echo " address 10.0.0.1" >> /etc/network/interfaces echo " netmask 255.255.255.0" >> /etc/network/interfaces echo " wireless-channel 10" >> /etc/network/interfaces echo " wireless-ssid "$SSID"" >> /etc/network/interfaces echo " wireless-mode ad-hoc" >> /etc/network/interfaces echo "" >> /etc/network/interfaces echo "" echo "NB: If you have run this twice, you will need to remove the duplicate text" echo "NB: If your wifi dongle for the access point is NOT on wlan3, edit /etc/network/interfaces to suit" fi # Sets dhcp range and length of lease echo "MANUAL PROCESSES REQUIRED" echo "Edit /etc/dnsmasq.conf" echo "Find and change interface setting to : interface=$WLAN" echo "dhcp-range=10.0.0.2,10.0.0.5,255.255.255.0,12h" echo ""
You then need another script to actually run the access point:
#!/bin/bash killall hostapd clear USAGE="Usage: start_access_point " if [ "$1" == "" ];then echo $USAGE exit 0 fi if [ "$2" == "" ];then echo $USAGE exit 0 fi if [ "$3" == "" ];then echo $USAGE exit 0 fi WLAN=$1 ESSID=$2 BRIDGETO=$3 ifconfig $WLAN down iwconfig $WLAN mode ad-hoc ifconfig $WLAN up iwconfig $WLAN essid "$ESSID" ifconfig $WLAN inet 10.0.0.1 ifconfig $WLAN up 10.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 udhcpd $WLAN & iptables --flush iptables --table nat --flush iptables --delete-chain iptables --table nat --delete-chain iptables --table nat --append POSTROUTING --out-interface $BRIDGETO -j MASQUERADE iptables --append FORWARD --in-interface $WLAN -j ACCEPT sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 # Now actually start hostapd hostapd /boot/redwing-pi/access_point/hostapd.conf #hostapd /boot/redwing-pi/access_point/hostapd.conf 1> /dev/null &
Now, I can’t guarantee that’ll all work, but it did for me!
![[Phoronix] Raspberry Pi GPU Driver Turns Out To Be Crap](http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/9f08ae85d0ab83fff9b3bf876d1ddc91?s=39&d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D39&r=G)
![[Phoronix] Raspberry Pi GPU Driver Turns Out To Be Crap](http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/62a2172c0b957c62e695292f1bbb3ab0?s=39&d=http%3A%2F%2F0.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D39&r=G)