RaspberryPi

Device Specification

The Raspberry Pi is an ARM based computer the size of a credit card. 700Mhz, 256MB or 512MB RAM, FastEthernet, 2xUSB, GPIO

Development

See Porting_Raspbian for the current development status of LinuxMCE on Raspberry Pi.

Media Director

The Raspberry Pi can be used as a minimal Media Director within LinuxMCE. The following instructions will show how to create a MD.

Requirements

• Your core must be LinuxMCE 1204 or higher.
• The Raspberry Pi must be plugged into the internal side of your LinuxMCE core's network to act as a media director.
• The Raspberry Pi must be a 512MB Model B. The Model A and the 256MB Model B do not have enough RAM to boot into Orbiter.
• The Raspberry Pi must be plugged in using the HDMI connector and using HDMI sound.
• You may wish to have a usb keyboard or mouse for interaction. USB-UIRT/MCE Remote is also possible.

Setup Steps

• On the Core:
  • Install the default pxe image for the Raspberry Pi. (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/118201886/linux-image-default-raspbian-wheezy_3.6-trunk-rpi-lmce1_all.deb)
  • edit /usr/pluto/bin/Diskless_CreateTBZ.sh to enable "raspbian_armhf" as a TARGET_TYPE
  • run /usr/pluto/bin/Diskless_CreateTBZ.sh to create a raspbian tarball

• Get the LinuxMCE Raspberry Pi MD sdcard contents.
  • Download - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/118201886/sdcard.zip
    • Format the sdcard for VFAT using the sd card formatter for Mac or Windows https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4, or using mkfs on linux.
    • Copy the entire contents of the sdcard zip to the newly formatted sdcard, all files should be in the root directory of the card with no sub-directories.
• Insert the sdcard into the Raspberry Pi.
• Power up the Raspberry Pi.
• On first boot the u-boot bootloader will start, it will grab the default pxe kernel/initrd.

There is a kernel bug that can try to load nfs prior to the network driver.  If you encounter a kernel panic then reboot the pi and try again.  This will only happen during these first few boots.

• Raspberry Pi will display "Announced ourselves to the router" and the core will run Diskless_Setup to prepare the MD.
• The Raspberry Pi will reboot once Diskless_Setup completes properly.
• On second boot the bootloader on the sdcard will be updated to the version the MD image is using.
• The Raspberry Pi will reboot.
• On third boot LinuxMCE will ask you to do a "Quick Reload Router".
• After router reload the Setup Wizard will be displayed. You will not have any audio or video in the Setup Wizard (it is trying to use xine)
• Complete the setup wizard, which will reload the router when finished.
• Orbiter will regenerate again and then UI1 will appear.

What works

• Embedded phone works on rPi. You'll have to delete /etc/asound.conf. You'll have to set audio to HDMI in webadmin -> Wizard -> Media Director for simplephone to switch to HDMI output.

What does not work

• Audio playback: xine-player always wants to initialize video, even for audio MP3 files. It fails because it can't initialize 'xv' or 'xshm' video driver.
• Video playback: omxplayer integration is in pipeline
  • delete xine player, mplayer, mythtv player devices from your new media director.
  • rm /etc/asound.conf
  • omx player (very alpha) may play audio and video after a router reload.