RaspberryPi

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LCfraser
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RaspberryPi

Post by LCfraser » Fri Dec 13, 2013 6:02 pm

Hi all,

The newsletter article and building notes for LiveCode on RaspberryPi are now available. Please post any feedback/problems/comments/etc in this thread and I'll do my best to help you when I can.

Enjoy your RaspberryPi!

Newsletter: http://newsletters.livecode.com/decembe ... tter1.html
Builds: http://downloads.livecode.com/livecode/pi/
DIY notes: https://github.com/runrevfraser/livecod ... ocs/RPi.md

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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by FourthWorld » Fri Dec 13, 2013 6:44 pm

Thanks for putting that build together. Any chance we can convince Kevin to send you to sunny SoCal in Feb to give a talk at the Linux Expo on using LiveCode on Pi? And are you coming to San Diego next year? I think I owe you dinner for this build - such a treat!
Richard Gaskin
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LCfraser
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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by LCfraser » Fri Dec 13, 2013 9:24 pm

Knowing the answer to such a question is way beyond my pay grade ;) Given that Scotland in February is overcast approximately 100% of the time, you'd be hard pushed to find somewhere that isn't sunnier... Svalbard, maybe.

I have no doubt there will be problems with the build - I've not had too much time to test it. Building standalones for the RPi works okay, at least. The installer lacks the standalone engines for any other platforms, though. Hopefully, I'll be able to add them in next time I make a build; there just wasn't enough time to get it ready to go out with the newsletter article. Hopefully my pie-related puns were not too terrible!

One bug that I am aware of is that the revOnline sample browser tends to get stuck at 100% CPU. Not sure why this is but closing it and re-opening seems to make the problem go away, at least temporarily. One other issue that I've forgotten to mention is that there may be graphics problems with the 16-bit colour framebuffer that some RPi distributions use by default. Unlike the ARM core, the GPU is beefy enough that editing /boot/config.txt to use a 32-bit fb shouldn't tax anything too much.

I've tried LiveCode on both model A and model B spec hardware (other than peripherals, the difference is 256MB vs 512MB of RAM) and it works well on both. In this age of multi-core PCs (and smartphones!) with gigabytes of RAM, it's nice to know that the engine still runs on something like the Pi.

Regards,
Fraser

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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by neoslimjim » Fri Dec 13, 2013 9:51 pm

Wow, awesome! Thx for this!
Jim

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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by andrewferguson » Sat Dec 14, 2013 2:01 pm

Brilliant, Thank you for this!

Do you know when I will be able to build apps for the Raspberry Pi on the Windows/Mac version of LiveCode?

Thanks,
Andrew

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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by LCfraser » Sat Dec 14, 2013 3:41 pm

Hi Andrew,

I'm afraid I don't have an estimate for when that might happen. I'll have to take a look at the standalone builder in the IDE to see how easy/difficult such a modification might be. Changes to the IDE are a bit more problematic than changing the rest of the engine, unfortunately, so such a change would almost certainly have to be added to the main LiveCode releases.

If/when such a change happens, building RPi standalones from non-RPi desktops would be a matter of copying the RPi standalone files into the appropriate place in the installation folder and changing the standalone configuration appropriately.

To avoid changing the standalone builder at all for the RPi release, the RPi standalone files are named as if they are the x86 files. In theory, you could drop these on top of the standalone executables in an install of 6.5.0 Community and you could generate ARM executables... you'd lose the ability to generate x86 Linux standalones, however. If you do want to try such a thing, make sure to back up your existing files first!

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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by monte » Sat Dec 14, 2013 10:45 pm

In the short term you could try putting the binaries in x86-64 and it will show the linux 64 bit checkbox. Perhaps something similar could be implemented for arm-32 where the checkbox only shows up if there's standalone engines. @runrevfraser if you search the IDE for [[ LinuxX64 ]] you should quickly find all the things that need to be done to implement a checkbox like that for arm-32.
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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by bertherd » Sun Dec 15, 2013 4:38 pm

Hi there
I am new to RasberryPi. But long established with LiveCode. I teach Computing at a London secondary school and now have see the ideal opportunity to start the kids with RasberryPi's. However I seem to have stumbled at the first hurdle. I set up a brand new Pi, copied 'LiveCodeCommunity-6_5_0-Linux.arm' on to the pi SD drive. I then changed to the correct directory and assumed I had to 'sudo ./LiveCodeCommunity-6_5_0-Linux.arm'. The LiveCode Installer appeared in the bottom of the screen and a window appears behind the Terminal window - but this window is just black.

So after that ramble - How do I install LiveCode on my RaspberryPi?

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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by LCfraser » Sun Dec 15, 2013 6:33 pm

Hi bertherd,

The most likely issue is that many (most?) RPi distributions use a framebuffer with 16-bit colour by default and LiveCode expects 32-bit colour. If you add the following lines to your /boot/config.txt file, it should resolve the problem with the window being black:

Code: Select all

framebuffer_depth=32
framebuffer_ignore_alpha=1
Another point worth noting is that if you have gksu installed, running the LiveCode installer with sudo may be un-necessary (but shouldn't do any harm).

Due to 16-bit colour being a very common configuration for RaspberryPi devices, I'll take a look at what is needed to get LiveCode working properly in that situation. In general, I'd recommend using 32-bit if possible but it would be useful if the out-of-the-box configuration of most distros worked properly too.

It's good to hear that you're planning to use LiveCode+RPi for teaching - I hope it goes well. I'm intending that the next release I do for RPi will support building externals for other platforms, including Android, so hopefully the ability to build apps for their phones will keep the pupils interested. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.

Regards,
Fraser

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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by bertherd » Sun Dec 15, 2013 7:44 pm

Hi there again
Thanks for that. It has solved the problem - A dialog was appearing but it was showing the contents of what ever last window refresh there was.
There has been a delay in me responding because of my lack of basic Linux knowledge. As I am a newbie to Linux, I had to solve the problem of editing the config.txt file. I eventually achieved it by using 'sudo nano /boot/config.txt' and then ensuring that you use ^O to save and ^X to exit. 4 attempts to get it right.
The kids won't stand a chance without me there! But that's the point - they'll start to learn (or switch off).
As I finish typing this the installer says 'Finished' - So on to the next adventure.
Thanks again Robert

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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by LCfraser » Sun Dec 15, 2013 8:14 pm

Hi Robert,

Good to hear that it is working. One other thing that has been suggested is providing an SD card image that includes LiveCode which should help avoid this problem in future - everything will be configured just how LiveCode likes it. Given your particular use-case, it could be especially useful as a clean image when over-enthusiastic students insert a wrench into the working of the system!

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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by [-hh] » Tue Dec 17, 2013 12:26 am

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Last edited by [-hh] on Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: RaspberryPi

Post by LCfraser » Fri Dec 20, 2013 12:59 pm

Hi Hermann,

A RaspberryPi forum has now been added at http://forums.runrev.com/viewforum.php?f=76. In terms of getting started, the guidance for other platforms (especially Linux) should be helpful - the RPi build isn't really any different from the normal Linux build. I'll see about posting some information on how to use the unique features of the RPi hardware, though.

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