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capsikin
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Joined: 30/06/2020
Location: Australia
Posts: 341

Posted: 02:22am 05 Jul 2020

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A few days ago I thought I'd see if I could set up Pi-cromite without connecting the Raspberry Pi to the network, and it worked.

I downloaded the latest "Raspberry Pi OS (32-bit) Lite" which got me a file: 2020-05-27-raspios-buster-lite-armhf.zip
I'd found it on their page at https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspberry-pi-os/

I installed it to the micro SD card using BalenaEtcher, then plugged it back in. The computer only recognised a small part of it, called "boot". I made a downloads folder under boot, and copied the picromite 5.05.04 mmbasic zip file to it. I think it was 2019-08-28_043035_mmbasic.zip before I renamed it, and I got it from the forum here: https://www.thebackshed.com/forum/ViewTopic.php?FID=16&TID=11678

Then I had a poke around the raspbian repository looking for pigpio.

I found the Packages file in http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian/dists/buster/main/binary-armhf/ (it's a huge file, I won't go into the details) and had a look at some of the pigpio related packages.

This lead me to: https://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian/pool/main/p/pigpio/
where I downloaded libpigpio1_1.68-3+rpi1_armhf.deb pigpio-tools_1.68-3+rpi1_armhf.deb pigpiod_1.68-3+rpi1_armhf.deb and some other files I ended up not using.
(I initially used http rather than https, but then realised that wouldn't check the package was authentic)

I'd picked the "1.68-3+rpi1" version because that's what was listed in the Packages file for buster, I don't know if the newer version would have worked.

Anyway, I copied those 3 .deb files into the boot/downloads folder as well, then removed the SD card from my computer and put it in the raspberry pi to boot.

Logged in with username: pi password: raspberry
installed the 3 packages libpigpio1 pigpiod and pigpio-tools:
sudo dpkg -i /boot/downloads/libpigpio1_1.68-3+rpi1_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i /boot/downloads/pigpiod_1.68-3+rpi1_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i /boot/downloads/pigpio-tools_1.68-3+rpi1_armhf.deb

(I'm not sure I needed all 3, but that's what I used)

unzipped the mmbasic file (I'd renamed it to include the version number)
unzip /boot/downloads/2019-08-28_043035_mmbasic - 5.05.04.zip

and now will run using:
sudo ./mmbasic

A few more notes on using the linux side

I tried running mmbasic without sudo, and it made a mess on the screen I couldn't stop from the same screen.
Fixing this: go to a second console using Alt-F2 or Ctrl-Alt-F2. Log in with the same pi/raspberry login. Enter killall mmbasic
Next time, use sudo, unless you're wanting to test this.

USB sticks weren't automatically connected as on a normal desktop linux system, so the easiest way to transfer files on and off the system was initially saving them in the /boot/downloads folder, which required sudo for permission, and then required shutting down the system to remove the card.

"raspi-config" - this was mentioned when I logged in. As it says, use it to set your country (at least if you're using it with a USB keyboard). May help if keyboard layout isn't right. e.g. you try to type "|" and get something else. I don't have exact instructions for using it because I tried several times before I got it to work. I think one of the suggestions in https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11444 helped.

I'm using the hdmi connection for a screen, and wanted to make the text larger.
There were some good instructions at https://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2014/04/how-to-change-the-command-line-font-size/
I used the "VGA" font rather than �Terminus�, but that's just my preference.

-- Caspian

astroboy
Regular Member

Joined: 28/12/2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 41

Posted: 07:54am 05 Jul 2020

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Hi Caspian

Thanks a million for this. Extremely helpful.

Regards
John

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