TRS-80

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I will try and remember all the relevant details. Going ~ in reverse chronological order here. Earlier this evening, @lanefuwas helping me in IRC (which I greatly appreciate btw) but he had to go to bed. Next step was getting out the UART he said. So I did that, now I come here to report the results: U-Boot SPL 2020.10-armbian (Oct 18 2020 - 23:16:40 +0200) DRAM:Timeout initialising DRAM resetting ... [...repeats...] Prior to that, we were trying to fix the bootloader and/or firmware. At that time the new kernel (latest stable), initrd, etc. all appeared to be in /boot (we had thought maybe sd card was fried, but apparently not). Prior to that, I had tried to do a kernel upgrade, via armbian-config. That was when the problems started (the Cubietruck never came back up). I was coming from a slightly older kernel before that. I think because at some point I did not upgrade (Arm/Debian) for a long time, I somehow skipped over the naming change and never picked up the new kernel. I also did not know it's necessary to manually upgrade kernel (on regular Debian that I am used to, it's automatic)? Or maybe because armbian-config was never installed (I had also installed that at this time to upgrade the kernel manually)? Anyway, at this point not sure exactly how I got into this pickle, just trying to note as many potentially relevant details as possible. Result of armbianmonitor -u before the kernel upgrade: http://ix.io/2DQK As you can see, I am on slightly older kernel (4.19.62). Prior to that, I had dist-upgraded Debian / Armbian to Buster (but somehow not the kernel, apparently). That was a while back. And everything seemed to be working fine in the meantime. Please let me know if any other info is needed. You could look also at IRC logs from earlier this evening. I am at a loss of what to do next.

In this thread, a bunch of {former, inactive, non}-Moderators argue against changes supported/proposed by most of current, active Moderators...

Not without doing some further study. But offhand I can say it's maybe on the order of tens, dozens maybe (not a lot)? This whole thing has become quite overblown, to be honest. It started with Igor suggesting (in IRC) that I search for one single URL on the forums. Which led to me discovering handful of spammers x 1-5 posts each = ~ some dozens of posts (that I discovered so far, could be more, I dunno). And then one guy coming back very recently (as can be seen in recent Reports history for those who have access). Then I devised some slightly more organized way to search for them and simply shared it in OP, for other newer Mods to also follow, as a sort of guide. And I thought that would be the end of it, we quietly keep going about our work, except perhaps armed with one more tool in the toolbox so to speak. Then began a reasonable discussion of a (very) slight change to policy. We overlook some use-case (Tutorials, etc.). So we adjust policy to account for. So far so good. Then few people come in thinking the sky is falling, spreading FUD and Help Help I'm Being Repressed! (which is totally un-warranted and hyperbolic IMO). Since this topic has gone all over the place since then (mostly missing the point, IMO) I will re-iterate, what is actually being proposed: has no downsides will not affect any normal user in any way the few actual affected use-cases (see @guidol post for example) have been addressed no other affected use-cases have actually been given (only hyperbole) requires no additional ongoing effort from current staff / Mods (only some tiny changes to settings) in fact it would reduce ongoing effort but has a lot of upside will help to deal with this specific (admittedly small) problem but also better deal with spam in general And therefore I don't understand why not to do it (emotional reactions aside)? The best thing I can actually suggest, is for everyone to calm down and re-read the entire thread very carefully, when you have some time. Because it is clear to me that a lot of things have been simply missed, or glossed over, in rushes to post. EDIT: If anyone has constructive criticism, or actual use-cases that have been overlooked (specific examples) please contribute them for discussion. But please can we stay away from vague generalizations and hyperbole.

True. Email validation is probably the easiest thing spamer can bypass by either using trashmail services or script-based creating accounts from any freemail provider. OK, even if that is true, I don't understand why not to do it? It requires zero effort on our part? And makes one more hurdle for spammer, but not legitimate user. Thank you!. This is what I have seen as well, hence my arguing so strongly for it. There is "theories" of what spammer could do, and then there is data (that we have) of what they are actually doing...

Well, if you can't be bothered to do https://lmsptfy.com/?q=RTL819EU debian than I doubt you will be able to follow (for example) instructions here. Therefore, my recommendation is to probably look for some different hardware.

No. Anyone can still post any time, post(s) will just be moderated until email is validated. That was something I suggested. To include validating email as one of main criteria to go from Validating -> Member status. This is correct balance I think between (very) low friction to contribution, and other factors (moderation, spam, etc...). Then there is separate discussion of possibly creating new group, slight step up from regular Member like "Trusted Member" or such who would have extended editing time (basically unlimited) for use case of maintaining tutorials, etc. like what @guidol outlined above. Which I support as I think that strikes the balance perfectly. EDIT: Maybe better naming would be "Probationary" or "New" Member and then "Trusted" (or similar) to more clearly delineate the tiers? With the idea of course that anyone participating in the forum for any (relatively short) length of time, some posts, and (perhaps most importantly) 1 or more Likes, would be fairly easy to get to "Trusted Member" (or whatever we decide to call it).

Thanks for contribution @chwe. I don't know this board, but in < 1 minute of searching forums I found exactly the post you link above, and also relevant info on Download page, etc. I write up almost exactly what you did (maybe little less in detail) and then I pause when I realize how fast I found the information. After thinking about it for another moment, I delete everything I wrote in order to let OP search and learn things for himself (teach a man to fish, etc.). As far as the meta of where to put it, as I said I prefer to leave it titled with symptoms (which people would search for, hopefully) instead of the solution (which maybe only we know), especially now that we have added explicit links to said solution(s). Which I suppose is OK now after OP also figured it out for himself. EDIT: Other meta of board maintainer stuff, WP permissions is interesting to me as I just became one myself apparently but is offtopic here (maybe I make some post later about that).

Perhaps you post in haste, without reading through entirety of thread, which mostly discusses where and how to strike the correct balance.

Unfortunately nowadays "web browsing" != "light desktop usage" due to castles of Javascript and huge web pages that so many of these sites like to load... also multimedia (video sites), etc... The biggest determining factor will likely be how impatient you are. For me, I want pages to load instantly. You may be more forgiving / patient, especially on some hardware you "just had laying around anyway" (i.e., essentially free, assuming you have some monitor(s) and keyboard, mouse, etc. also "laying around" or go find some at a garage sale or local free classified site (Craigslist, etc.) for few bucks). For example, I own a few old Classic ThinkPad T60 which I love for their free (as in freedom) bootloader, nice keyboard and 4:3 FlexView screens. They are great for terminal, text, coding work however having only a dual core Yonah ~1.5-2 Ghz and 3GB of RAM makes many "modern" websites (and especially watching videos) slightly painful. I much prefer to do multimedia stuff on my big powerful desktop (where I also have huge 20 30 20 PLP display setup). Anyway, back to OP, I have no direct experience with that hardware, but it seems it would be only a small investment of your time to simply give it a try... especially as you say if the thing is lying around unused anyway... Perhaps you could return and share your finding then, like a mini-review, for others maybe even considering purchasing in future (which is slightly more of a commitment). I did not search forum, but maybe someone has done such review already (I would check that first if I were you, in fact I would have done so before posting (and maybe you did, I dunno...)). One minor note, I do like XFCE (which I believe is the default DE). It is very lightweight yet still has plenty of options for customizing those little niggling details. I have standardized on it across all platforms (including much more powerful machines like my main desktop workstation).

Glad to hear you got it working finally. And even more importantly, that you start to actually understand the issue. These devices almost require a hobby-like approach, as there are many potential pitfalls. If you enjoy using them like so many of us do (it's hard to beat performance and power wise for the price) perhaps consider lurking around the forums and reading a bit more here and there, it will help a lot in locating information later when you get into trouble (or perhaps not even getting into trouble in the first place). Cheers!

Did you try: sudo nand-sata-install ?

No, you are trying to solve the wrong problem (XY Problem). We already determined in your other thread that the problem is power related. So, focus on that. I am locking this thread, and will maybe even delete it after a while.

Yes depends on model. May need some firmware, especially if you are on Debian (which may in turn be located in non-free repository, which is not enabled by default, at least in Debian).

Yes, exactly. Because PC power supply is some hundreds of watts. But even there, some unknown cheap power supplies do not meet specifications on certain rails of power (12v, etc.) and thus the market for known, higher quality enthusiast level power supplies in the PC arena. From building my own PCs since decades I already knew about sites like https://www.jonnyguru.com and others discussing these issues. Yes, this is why those of us who understand well the effects of power on system stability harp on that all the time. And why it is mentioned first and foremost in Getting Started part of Documentation (and why I put that link again in my signature), etc... No. I was suggesting to search the forums for those exact terms. I suspect strongly that you should find a lot of useful information. As a side note, I prefer to leave the title as is (describing the symptoms) so that others in future may find it that way. The solution is power, but people don't search for solutions, they search (or should) for symptoms.

Another random tid-bit: When you Merge some post(s) into another thread, the board software will (very annoyingly, IMO) change the title of the target thread (the existing one you want to keep) to the title from the thread you are Merging from. Terrible behavior, but just be advised so that you can be prepared (ex. have the original target thread open in another tab) so you can copy/paste the title back how it was... (or copy it onto your clipboard beforehand, etc.).

I think very strongly that validating email should be (one of?) main steps to graduate from Validation -> Member. Anybody can put in whatever they want for an email address, it's all BS until they have validated it. And in the meantime they can be posting already... Most of spammers I see, never even validated their email... Some number of Likes (perhaps along with other criteria like post count, and/or time on forum) I think is probably a good idea for this "Trusted Member" (or whatever we want to call it) intermediate level. I think Likes especially are hard to fake.

I think much less. Maybe a couple hours? How often have any of you guys come back up to 24 hours later to edit a post? I rarely do much after the first few minutes (I always read after I post and often catch some typo or grammar). The shorter the time, I think the easier for us to keep our eyes on new members we suspect to be spammers. Remember, they can always Flag it of something really needs to be edited, or just add their changed thoughts to a new post.

According to this, Renegade is currently Community Support only, so I moved your post to the appropriate forum (P2P). You mean serial output?

I moved your topic to TV Boxes sub-forum. I know there is at least one thread dealing with S905X3 in general, although I am not sure they delve into the issue you present, specifically. I don't own the hardware, and I haven't dug into that thread deep enough to know the material in detail. So, we leave this thread separate, for now. If this turns into Research thread, please post whatever resources / info you find. We can always tag it as such later. Then if you get tired working on it, someone else comes along later and can pick up where you left off, etc... We are all standing on the shoulders of giants here. Good luck!

Because it wasn't really "solved" I edited the title instead to "workaround." Thanks for reporting back!

I purchased ODROID-XU4 specifically for the purpose of doing software motion detection (with Motion, even) because it had so much CPU grunt (and Gigabit Ethernet, etc.). But so far I never really taxed it. We are only doing one stream (but it is a 720p stream) and it looks nice. The XU4 seems also not to break a sweat. I realize that "not break a sweat" is not as useful of a qualitative metric, however, so maybe I should find some time to try and connect some other devices (I do own 3) and also get some actual hard numbers to look at. And report them back here and perhaps at Motion forums / wiki as well...

I don't care how much work it takes. I care about doing a proper job. You are, of course, welcome to go off in a hurry with the rest of the world... It certainly seems the popular thing to do nowadays... It actually doesn't take that long, once you get your method down and get into a rhythm. Anyway, I am well aware of many people's time constraints nowadays, hence my re-iterating at the end:

I think that is a very good idea. The forum software though has limitations what it can do. But site level Admin like @Igor and @lanefu have more access to different settings than we do, so we will have to ask them. There are enough Mods around, I think, in the event some legitimate user might need to edit something in an OP or elsewhere for legitimate reasons, they could just Flag and do it that way.

@Jijo, I found the post that @NicoD mentioned above, in literally seconds looking around the TV Boxes forum, and I don't even own a TV Box nor trying to get one working, etc. Please look around, search, read on your own for some time before you make posts looking to be spoon fed. In defense of the first 2 posts, the development of the above did not really begin until 2019-12-03 as can be seen by the post date. At any rate, since this thread is not really providing anything useful (other than @NicoD redirect above, you should probably thank him BTW) I am locking it so people don't continue to post in here.