Falcon FPP install onto a Raspberry Pi2 model B

[lrhorer]

I for 1 am dedicating the pi to the xmas lights

So you buy a separate set of controllers when you want to do a display on Independence day (or your country's equivalent)? You've never considered doing displays on Halloween? Any other holiday or special occasion? No matter, even for my Christmas displays, I employ more than just FPP.

Like Phil says, $40 is a small price to pay for a dedicated piece of hardware.

I wouldn't pay $0.10 for a dedicated piece of hardware, if a more flexible and general purpose device exists.

I can mount it in a box with the controllers instead of running a lead inside to the computer.
If I found another use for the Pi I would buy another one.

'Irrelevant. I do have more than one Pi. One of them works with my main servers in a high availability cluster to control my HVAC system. Another controls an indoor DMX display (and does not run FPP - it's not appropriate at all there). Then there is the Pi that does run FPP - sometimes - for my outdoor display. What makes you think mine is not mounted in a box with one of the controllers? More to the point, why would that preclude my running other players on that machine? Below you can see where this Pi is mounted. As you can see, getting to the SD card is difficult, especially for someone with my physical problems.

 

[lrhorer]

No one piece of software meets everyones demands.

My main point exactly.

The Falcon FPP project is being driven by a certain few in the community giving up their time for free to develop this

I appreciate that, and I definitely appreciate the work being done by the developers. That doesn't mean I believe any developer should believe a locked-in system is appropriate. Heck, look at the OS being employed, here. The main idea of Linux and of GNU is to eliminate such proprietary, locked-down systems.

and may have very different priorities to you and spending time coding something that may not be a big benifit for the programmer may mean it gets a lower prioity.

That's rather a broad brush, and a presumptive one. Developing an open system does not necessarily require more effort. Indeed, it frequently engenders less effort. Depending on how one handles the work, utilizing the already existing NOOB utility rather than developing and maintaining a proprietary one might be somewhat less work. Not having looked closely into the details of the FPP NOOB, I don't know for certain, but it is certainly possible.

But for this hobby the vast majority would be using a dedicated PI for the task, what you are doing is not the norm within this hobby

I don't think that is true. Indeed, I know for a fact not everyone uses a Raspberry Pi, which BTW is why FPP itself is no longer named Falcon Pi Player. I also know for a fact not everyone in the hobby uses FPP, and I know for a fact that I am not by a long shot the only one who tries out other software for comparison, yet does use FPP for some purposes.

and sounds like you are involved in commercial installs

Not at all. This is all for my house during the holidays. Professionally I am a Telecommunications Engineer. 'Nothing at all to do with lighting.

which has very different needs to DIY, so that may help explain why the software does not meet your needs.

Again, not at all. It does not meet my needs because this IS DIY. DIY stands for "Do It Yourself", not "Have Someone Else Do It For You". It's my hardware. No matter how much or how little I paid for it, I insist on having full control over it, even if some piece of software did meet all my needs, which is virtually never the case in the first place.

But it would be nice for many to have this added flexibility

I certainly think so.

 

[fasteddy]

I think you misunderstood because I know many don't use a Pi including myself, but for most that do use a Pi then they use it as a dedicated controller in most case.

My mistake for thinking you may have been doing this at a commercial level because you seem to have a large need for changing things very often and thus your need for this feature which we agree would be very helpful for many.

DIY comes in all levels and doesn't mean you have to build and code controllers, not everyone is an engineer, in fact most in this hobby are not.

It sounds like you are someone who has the talent to add greatly to a project like this, so why not try and see if you can give some of your free time and skilled knowledge to help the community and offer up some assistance with the development if possible. In the end the more people that have the right skills that can collaborate together will help the community as a whole, which has been the foundation of the overall community for many years and im sure for many more years to come

 

[darylc]

Again, not at all. It does not meet my needs because this IS DIY. DIY stands for "Do It Yourself", not "Have Someone Else Do It For You". It's my hardware. No matter how much or how little I paid for it, I insist on having full control over it, even if some piece of software did meet all my needs, which is virtually never the case in the first place.

If you are that into DIY then don't even run this on a PI, install FPP on top of a debian install running under virtualisation on a pc or something instead!

 

[AussiePhil]

lrhorer has exactly 4 posts, all HoHoHoing about something that is actually open source it's not locked down and you can hack it to your hearts content.
The rest of the community has better things to do such as light construction and sequencing.


Topic locked and I will accept valid discussion to unlock it via PM


Phil