Failing with Raspberry Pi

[Nottub]

So I've been at this all day and still failed .

Installed the Raspberry Pi image (which looked good, set up headless operation. Got into Cumulus, set up station details, had a look around the site and then go back to Station Details and nothing, it wont, open, just sits there.

Restarted Pi and no change. Back to square one and created another image from the PC and start all over again, same result... grrr

Several hours later I've downloaded Cumulus onto the Pi with a GUI, extracted the files and dont know what to do now since the .exe I normally use doesn't wotk as it Linux.

So I can now see the Pi via remote desktop, can see the Cumulus files but that's about it.


Think i'm getting too old for this.


Nottub

[freddie]

Which version of Cumulus?

[mcrossley]

When the image fails, then can you connect to the pi using something like WinSCP, and copy the latest MXdiags file from /opt/CumulusMX/MXdiags/ ?

[Nottub]

Hi, thanks for all this.

Freddie - It's the latest version of Cumulus hot off the website.

Tried both the image version, twice, and now reverted to the full Raspian OS with GUI, to use the full Cumulus version.

Been looking at the old Raspberry Pi I'm using and think that may be part of the issue. Everything is just very slow, accessing the Internet requires patience.

My research suggests its only single core 512mb unit (Hardware BCMw835, Revision 000e, an early Model B Rev 2) onto which I can't install Mono without some error message about 4.1 or something. I can't recall the exact term mentioned.

Got to decide if a pi 3B+ is worth getting, or a pi 4 to give it a better chance of success. Not sure which but neither are that expensive.

Any thoughts on the conclusion I've come to?

Thank you
Nottub

[prodata]

Just to address the 'which new Pi?' question. Not sure why you would buy a new 3B when 4 is available. No real reason AFAIK not to go for 4. but do aim for the at least the 2GB version and ideally the 4GB for better future-proofing. (8GB gets significantly more expensive and is almost certainly unnecessary overkill).

[Cortmalaw]

No real reason AFAIK not to go for 4.

If it's just for runnng CumulusMX, then a very-low-powered Raspberry Pi ZeroW is much more than powerful enough. There's no number-crunching going on. Much cheaper and uses less electricity when you leave it on 24/7.

I suspect it's not Pi-power that's the problem. Maybe a dodgy SD card?

[galfert]

I second the recommendation to go with the PI 4B with 2GB or 4GB of RAM. There are just so many improvements over the 3B+ and the price difference is but a day's lunch.

Just be sure to get a good power supply for the Pi 4B with 3A. The Pi 4B requires a decent power supply.

As a last ditch effort, since you mentioned Mono install issues, you could try to bring in Mono via a Docker container.
Install Docker and then create a container with Mono and mount the folder where your CumulusMX resides into the container. You can draw parallels from my Docker instructions for Synology.
viewtopic.php?p=148956#p148956

But I'm not sure that you have enough resources with that old Pi to run Docker....so its just a suggestion.
Did you say you have the Pi 1B? Because if so then this article says Docker is only for the Pi 2, 3, and 4.
https://withblue.ink/2019/07/13/yes-you ... pbian.html

Reports are that it doesn't even work on the Zero. I stumble on a few posts on the Internet with people still recommending the Zero (W) and I just don't get it. The Pi 4B is energy efficient enough and so what if its twice as big as it is still small...and yes twice the price ...but again it doesn't break the bank. When you compare the 4B to a typical computer you are being very green. The Zero is just underpowered. Maybe it is enough to run Cumulus MX but that in itself is a waste...why not run other things...like Pi-hole or a backup software, or another weather software like WeeWX...all simultaneously. Then when you have to do updates it can be less painful. People that only use computers (and don't maintain them) forget how nasty it can be to deal with a slow old computer. My mother in law dreaded upgrading her old computer because she said it was fast enough...yeah but then she needed me to support it and do updates and I had to suffer a wretched machine. The Zero sux....so does any other old Pi...hard to draw the line depending on use but the 1 and Zero...no thank you. And once you taste the power of the 4B you'll want to toss everything else out.

[prodata]

Let's not be too hard on the Pi Zero. Remember that it is significantly more powerful than the original Raspberry Pi. I've had a Pi Zero running CMX quite happily, admittedly without a whole long list of web downloads.

But the problem I had with the Zero was that the Mono configuration was at least slightly different from eg a Pi 3 or 4. It wasn't until I installed Mono directly on the Zero that CMX would start and run correctly. So the problem was not the power of the Zero but the Mono configuration. (This was some months ago now and I know that Mono installation details are often updated, so whether the issue still applies I can't tell. But the Pi Zero itself performed OK.)

[Cortmalaw]

John is right. Pi Zero is actually capable of running many applications simultaneously - CumulusMX, other weather stuff, Pi-hole, . It only seems slows when serios number crunching is needed (local network VPN is a struggle), and with our weather apps all we are doing is moving fairly small amounts of data around.

Compiling mono was indeed very slow on a Pi Zero, but we don't need to do that now that CumulusMX was updated and the old issue with USB-connected FineOffset stations was resolved. With the standard mono installation of pre-compiled builds, it's not an issue. And we seem to be back to being able to switch SD cards between PiZero and faster versions as required (that stopped being possible for a while - not sure why).

Pi4 are much more than twice the price. Depending on model, it's 3.6x to 7.9x more expensive.

And it needs a beefier power supply. And that matters if you want to run the whole setup from a USB power pack with solar panel trickle charging.

[mcrossley]

I'd throw in that usability also depends on if you want to work with a desktop GUI or not. I'm sure lots of the experienced people here are running their Pi's without the overhead of a GUI. Newbies often want the security/familiarity of a GUI and a web browser. Running a desktop, browser and Cumulus on a zero, or older gen pi is going to be verrry painful! Running as a command line not so much, and the bonus that there are far fewer updates to apply.

[Nottub]

Just a quick update.

I can appreciate the advantages of running a Pi, to that end I've ordered a new one.

I'm sure this will overcome some of the bottlenecks and restrictions with my sons original Pi.


No doub't i'll be back to tap in to the knowledge base held within this forum.

Glad you dont bite my head off with the silly questions I ask. I remember the old saying 'The only stupid question is the one that you don't ask'.


Regards
Nottub

https://www.calvertoncam.co.uk/weather