SBC Minimalistic Expectation of Wiring Pi Out of the Box for minimal OS

[vtech]

Thanks, Armbian for supporting users like us with community backed OS for SBCs which otherwise are struggling to maintain the OS software in synergy with their hardware product portfolio.

 

The whole SBC paradigm revolves around accessing GPIO either as Inputs, Outputs, UARTs, SPI or I2C. If the main focus/priority is to get the UI up and running, there would be no difference between mainstream rooted phones/tablets and SBC. As a general observation, I have almost always struggled to run gpio based python scripts out of the box after loading minimal OS for multiple SBCs.

 

As a humble request on behalf of whole community is to propose readiness for GPIO with wiringpi for python out of the box even for minimal OS after loading the downloaded image on SD card.

 

Also, it will be great if enabling ports from armbian-config is working like a charm right first time. Sometimes, it is a struggle to carry out simple configuration of enabling the SPI.

 

I suppose, both of the above features (1: Default presence of wiring pi for python 2: Right first-time configuration of required serial communication in armbian-config) are absolutely imperative.

 

I am looking forward to other members to share their opinion and experience in this regard. I will be glad if my perspective is wrong and would like to end my struggle and anxiety of these two features when I am trying new minimal OS on any used or new model of SBC.

 

Regards

Edited December 6, 2024 by vtech

[MaxT]

Search forum- AFIAR @Igor wrote re wiringpi recently.

[Igor]

14 minutes ago, MaxT said:

wrote re wiringpi recently.

No   But I have advised someone, that wanted to complete this ("over the weekend"), correct path:

https://forum.armbian.com/topic/38443-no-gpio-on-bpi-m4-zero/#comment-206453

https://forum.armbian.com/topic/47139-banana-pi-armbian-buildsystem-development-team

 

Its a lot of work to develop such system. At least with current team - which is already busy over the top. Once this is developed, integration and maintenance is again above our resources. But if someone will start this, we will support this however we can.

 

[vtech]

Thanks for the reply. Even if wiring pi is installed, the new release is having problem for enabling SPI from overlay or armbian-config. Is there any way, to ensure that the automated releases are having relevant things to make the minimal armbian OS run out of the box for target SBC for controlling the serial interfaces right first time?

 

I tried Armbian_community_25.2.0-trunk.124_Orangepizero3_bookworm_current_6.6.62_minimal for Oranege Pi Zero 3. It gave problem for enabling SPI. I haven't checked yet if it was trouble for enabling other interfaces too. Can someone having orange pi zero 3 check this if SPI is visible in dev folder as soon as it is enabled in armbian config?

 

What will be instructions for enabling that if it is not getting activated by simple selecting it to be enabled in armbian-config?

 

The error was that the dtb file was missing. It will be great if these dtb files are ensured to be present for correct function of the GPIO related functions including serial ports.

Edited December 10, 2024 by vtech

[SteeMan]

6 hours ago, vtech said:

It will be great if these dtb files are ensured to be present for correct function of the GPIO related functions including serial ports.

The short answer is from your first post in this thread:

On 12/6/2024 at 1:53 PM, vtech said:

community backed OS for SBCs

These are mostly community supported boards.  So it is up to volunteers in the community to add and test features, even ones like this that you consider basic.

 

However, I think I would add the following comment.  Based on another comment you made in the first post:

On 12/6/2024 at 1:53 PM, vtech said:

The whole SBC paradigm revolves around accessing GPIO either as Inputs, Outputs, UARTs, SPI or I2C.

That statement I think would have been correct probably 5 years ago.  Today, not as much.  I would venture to say that today with the latest generation of CPUs that most users are looking to SBCs as desktop replacement devices.  So features like video acceleration, etc. are what we see the most requests for.  So features like these basic lower level SPI/I2C etc get pushed down the priority list for those that are volunteering their time (unless they have that particular need themselves).