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More proper testing - better Armbian experience

Igor

By Igor
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Igor

Igor

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By the way how much time does it takes? 

 

Mostly it depends from your download speed and CPU. If you have some average download speed (10Mbit), IIRC it should be done in less than one hour if you do this first time. Second build, when cache is created, it takes around 5-7 min on some modern SSD driven 4-8 Intel core. Kernel compilation + image building.

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earth08

earth08

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Mostly it depends from your download speed and CPU. If you have some average download speed (10Mbit), IIRC it should be done in less than one hour if you do this first time. Second build, when cache is created, it takes around 5-7 min on some modern SSD driven 4-8 Intel core. Kernel compilation + image building.

I have 4mb speed and also the process get an fatal error.

Don't remember what was the error.

Now started again

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Igor

Igor

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On 5. 1. 2017 at 9:22 PM, Zoom said:

I know you weren't talking about server load, but I wanted to ask, is there a particular reason Armbian doesn't provide magnet links for downloading images? It's pretty simple to generate them automatically (mktorrent) and it's possible to include web seeds (http sources) as well.

On 14. 4. 2017 at 9:40 PM, tkaiser said:

It would maybe help @Igor who runs the download server if you explain to him why you weren't able to find the correct OS image (I've a theory but gave up long ago, IMO it would need an UI designer to look at this stuff)

 

Torrents for all stable images are operational, but we need to rework download section.

 

I was playing a little today and come up with this testing design:  https://www.armbian.com/aaa/ It's WIP, data is partially incorrect but provide real download links upon select.

Shell we proceed into this direction? 

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zador.blood.stained

zador.blood.stained

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3 minutes ago, Igor said:

I was playing a little today and come up with this testing design:  https://www.armbian.com/aaa/ It's WIP, data is partially incorrect but provide real download links upon select.

Shell we proceed into this direction? 

I am still in favor of simplifying the download section instead of making it more complicated: adding "recommended" images (no more than 4) and hiding everything else under the spoiler as "advanced"



Basically something like this:

download-page-next.PNG.023764f0ac2bdce959652917b3f4a157.PNG

To handle torrents we could turn download buttons into drop-down menus with "Direct download" and "Download via torrent"  options

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tkaiser

tkaiser

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13 minutes ago, Igor said:

Shell we proceed into this direction?

IMO yes, thank you. Some notes:

  • daily builds should be either called nightly or vice versa
  • For nightlies it would be great if the download link appearing could be changed to a warning/disclaimer ('Nightly images are untested and without any support!' --> 'I understand and agree')
  • I second Zador's suggestion to limit count of directly accessible variants but think we need to make this configurable (part of board config file) since different boards have different target audiences (eg. H2/H3/H5 users seem to misuse their boards as Desktop replacements -- legacy Desktop -- while Clearfog users should be poked to choose mainline images)
  • I would love to see a link to Getting Started guide from 'Quick Start' tab.

 

 

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Igor

Igor

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Option B:

 

- daily builds is more my quick typing. will be aligned to nightly

- warning can be add when selecting. i already have javascript here to hide "torrent" link since it's n/a for nightly

- if we choose to put recommended downloads, we need to add one field into board config, yes, but on the other hand this looks a bit more complex to me: https://www.armbian.com/bbb/

 

I'll try to produce option C in the morning with moving things apart a little bit. It looks cluttered in both cases.

 

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zador.blood.stained

zador.blood.stained

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1 minute ago, Igor said:

- if we choose to put recommended downloads, we need to add one field into board config, yes, but on the other hand this looks a bit more complex to me: https://www.armbian.com/bbb/

Under the spoiler should be the same "blocks" with descriptions and download buttons IMO. Drop-down list here is bad IMO because you have to select an option first to read its description, and it's harder to compare releases since only one is displayed at any time.

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Igor

Igor

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3 minutes ago, zador.blood.stained said:

So what are the "support status" bar ranges and names? For example H5 mainline builds should be marked as "experimental" rather than "testing"


This part is solved only technically. I am still not sure how to shape and name those values to provide valuable meaning. 

$PADCOLOR="w3-red"; $PADTEXT="Development";
if ($SUPPORT >= 50 && $SUPPORT<90){$PADCOLOR="w3-orange";$PADTEXT="Testing";}
if ($SUPPORT >= 90){$PADCOLOR="w3-green";$PADTEXT="Stable";}

We can also include if=nightly condition to set the text and colour.

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Igor

Igor

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1 minute ago, Tido said:

Some people might not be familiar with Torrent-Clients. How about recommending "Transmission" ?


Well, yes, probably .... but those should just proceed with a big button :)

 

Adding few lines and/or pics to documentation and pointing there?

 

@zador.blood.stained


"Experimental" is now fixed.

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zador.blood.stained

zador.blood.stained

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3 minutes ago, Tido said:

Some people might not be familiar with Torrent-Clients. How about recommending "Transmission" ?

Then torrent downloads are not for those people? You have to keep in mind that suggestion has to apply to different platforms and architectures, and IMO it will be too much info on the download pages, so let's keep it simple. For example Ubuntu doesn't recommend any Torrent client near the torrent downloads.

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zador.blood.stained

zador.blood.stained

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4 minutes ago, Igor said:

"Experimental" is now fixed.

What about putting "Known issues" block above the download buttions? I hope this means that more people will read this before downloading an image.

And displaying "Desktop" video only if there are desktop builds for this board, can it be easily automated?

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Igor

Igor

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2 hours ago, zador.blood.stained said:

What about putting "Known issues" block above the download buttions?


OK, let's try that ... I also plan to add a red box when clicking on nightly downloads ...
 

2 hours ago, zador.blood.stained said:

And displaying "Desktop" video only if there are desktop builds for this board, can it be easily automated?


This is if there are desktop option possible - related to BUILD_DESKTOP variable and unrelated from recommended section.

 

Now rebuild is also fast and will run in cron when finished.

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Tido

Tido

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31 minutes ago, zador.blood.stained said:

Then torrent downloads are not for those people? You have to keep in mind that suggestion has to apply to different platforms and architectures,

This is the nice thing on Transmission, it runs everywhere. Even CLI and Webinterface, I wanted to use it on my R1 like this.

 

Well, I thought next to the "Card burning tool"

 

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zador.blood.stained

zador.blood.stained

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Posted

 

Quote
  • using images with legacy kernel is highly recommended, mainline kernel is for developers only
  • desktop images are in preview / beta state

obsolete since we have a "support status" bar

 

Quote
  • to get Wi-Fi working use ‘sudo nmtui’

can be removed - Pine64 doesn't even have the Wi-Fi module by default

 

Quote
  • mainline kernel does not support DVFS, onboard analog audio output, onboard IR receiver, CSI, DSI and TP interfaces

instead we add a link to the linux-sunxi wiki status matrix in the mainline image block

 

Quote
  • SoPine A64 requires different u-boot and Device Tree and for now is supported only as a build script target and nightly CLI images

we can add SoPine as a separate board, tested it today a little bit, and it works stable enough with its own ower supply

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zador.blood.stained

zador.blood.stained

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Just now, Tido said:

This is the nice thing on Transmission, it runs everywhere. Even CLI and Webinterface, I wanted to use it on my R1 like this.

 

We can add a small question mark near the torrent likns which will open a pop-up with explanation about BitTorrent (similar to the one here) and a client recomendation.

By default I would prefer to keep the download pages as simpe as possible - we already have enough text and links there

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tkaiser

tkaiser

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24 minutes ago, Igor said:

Kind of messy?

Yep, especially the Notes (though containing information) should be hidden by default. This is exactly the wall of text people scare away (or prevent that they read at least 'known issues')

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weathercloud

weathercloud

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Hey guys! I am new here and am just beyond my entry point into the Single Board Computer world. I am running the new Asus Tinkerboards, along with Raspberry PI 3 Bs. Armbian really helped me to get started on this type of hardware and I am very interested in contributing to this project.

 

Any suggestions on areas newbies can help out might be helpful? 

 

I can say that Armbian's Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Desktop image (that is still in test) out performs the Asus provided Android and DebIan images of TinkerOS. It was not until I found Armbian, that I could actually keep the Tinkerboard up and running smoothly. 

 

Easy install!

Easy image creation!

 

I have been focusing on getting Docker to run cleanly on the Tinkerboard and have had the best luck running Armbian. 

 

One of the primary reasons I am testing the new Asus Tinkerboard is for it's Gigabit Ethernet capability, for streaming. I am interested in converting some old HDMI monitors into "Smart Monitors" and have been trying to figure out a work-around for streaming things like Netflix. Limitations around streaming due to browser support / plug-in support (Chromium / widevine plugin) has been a roadblock. I think the Tinkerboard would be a great streaming device if that compatibility were to come along. Any areas like this I would be more than happy to help research. 

 

Please let me know how I can be of any assistance. I will be testing both Desktop and Server releases for Tinkerboard over the next bit. I will be sure to provide feed back both here and via GitHub. 

 

 

Happy to be here!

WeatherCloud

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pfeerick

pfeerick

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@Igor Just putting my name down here as willing to offer whatever support I can re: testing beta images and bug squashing for the boards I have (list in signature). I can't promise I can fix any problems bar minor ones or the glaring omissions that occur due to starting at the code for too long... but I will try anyway. For me this is fun... new challenges ;)

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Igor

Igor

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Repository beta.armbian.com has been populated with the latest full package base. It's a test build of recent build script rework and some more testing and checking would be helpful.

 

What is new?
- kernel sources with our patches and config (please try some onboard kernel compilation testings) Install example: 

apt-get install linux-source-4.12.4-sunxi 

- stretch packages

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