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pinaomiforcewebtools - a different approach to raspberrypi netboot programs

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sammargh

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Introducing pinaomiforcewebtools! It's a big ass name that I don't even know how to pronounce! It's actually just the projects piforcetools and naomiweb with a lot of tweaking in place ( @Smurph you are more than welcome to take what you want from this) that was born out of my own stupidity.

Long story short I have had the older rpi2 LCD setup and ran two separate sd cards for the two software. Eventually I got tired of this so I was like "I'll get naomiweb working on the older image!" and proceeded to run apt-get update which destroyed everything.I guess extremely old raspbian had special commands necessary to function for wireless and the sort. Also at some point I robbed my naomiweb sd card for another project so I was out of all netboot options. Frustrated I wanted to accomplish a few things:
  1. Update piforcetools to use Python 3 (smurph I actually just lifted your triforcetools.py for that part of piforcetools since that script was already done sorry)
  2. Remove both applications from being in an image and instead move to an installer script that is both easy to use and aimed to function for future versions of raspbian
  3. Fix naomiweb so that Naomi 2 games & Atomiswave worked properly
  4. Have an easy to use image that provides naomiweb on a local wifi access point rather than having to connect to it
With that pinaomiforcewebtools was born!

https://github.com/sammargh/pinaomiforcewebtools

pinaomiforcewebtools is a set of piforcetools/naomiweb and scripts that are placed within the boot partition of raspbian and configurations set within the install script. Once run on the raspberry pi you end up with either a Raspberry Pi 2/3 with naomiweb on your local wireless or a Raspberry Pi 2 with naomiweb and lcd shield support with my improved menu code. This also sets the Raspberry Pi up with SSH so you can use SFTP to send roms directly to the Raspberry Pi from any computer. Please note this will only work with Naomi 1 or 2 but supports all Naomi & Atomiswave games. I tested it on a Raspberry Pi 2b both with and without LCD as well as 3+. Please be aware that after you load roms it takes a little bit for naomiweb to start up as it creates a checksum of every rom imported but after that it's lightning fast. Also an added feature to piforcetools for LCD users is a command to provide WIFI ip. Let me know if you have any issues or questions!
 
And please, for my own sanity use a spare SD card for this. I haven't had anyone else to test this yet so YMMV and it could get you like how I was before I wrote the package.
 
Thanks for this, i'll give it a bash today if i can, fingers crossed it sorts my VF4 issues!

Great stuff :)
 
Yesterday I tried your app.
Installation is pretty simple and everything is ok, but I have some trouble to resolve.

1. If a category (such as Naomi 2 games) has no games presented in the roms folder, the display goes all blue, and pressing any buttons does not exit to other categories, so you have to reboot the device. Could I suggest to use subfolders inside roms folder? For example 'Naomi Vertical', 'Naomi 2', etc. the same names that appears in the gamelist.py, so it's easy to edit that file and removing some lines if not needed (in my case I use a Naomi 1 so it's useless for me to keep Naomi 2 games in the roms folder).

2. I can use ssh e sftp without any problems, and the display shows me the correct ip address, but if I open a browser page with my RPi2 ip, it does not work and I don't know why. Consider that I only use piforcetools with the display in the past months, so naomiweb is kinda unknown to me, maybe I'm doing something wrong and I'd really appreciate your help to solve these issues.

By the way, I haven't had the opportunity to connect the RPi2 to my Naomi yet, I only made some stand-alone tests as of now.

Thanks for your hard work, there was the necessity of a software like this, an all-in-one solution! Congrats! :)

EDIT: removed the display from the pi and naomiweb appeared to the browser page.

EDIT2: now naomiweb also works with the display connected, but I don't know why.
 
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Nice, should this also work with the wifi dongle and an rPi B+? This setup works with the previous version of devtty0 (or similar), hopefully also with yours? :)
 
Ok, I made some tests with my Naomi 1.

First of all, I deleted "naomi 2" voice inside the piforcetools.py and this solved the "all blue" display issue.

piforcetools is working flawlessly as of now.

The real problem is naomiweb, I cannot figure it out and I'd really appreciate some help here.

The strange thing is that the web server only starts if I remove the ethernet cable, but of course it cannot transfer the game to the Net-Dimm in that way.

What is happening?

Thanks for your help.
 
Once the pi is booted login to it via ssh as the pi user and run the command "cd /home/pi/naomiweb && python3 site.py"

If you could paste the error that results I can see if I can point you in a direction to fix.

I hope to have an update later today to address a lot of the issues listed here as well
 
I cannot login to ssh with the lan cable connected between RPi2 and Net-Dimm, the shell won't appear. If I disconnect the lan cable, instantly the ssh shell appears.

So I think I cannot proceed with your hint.

Maybe there's a conflict between ethernet connection and wifi one? Would it help to write something inside /etc/network/interfaces?

EDIT: anyway, with ethernet cable disconnected, this is the result of 'python3 site.py' command (file attached).
 

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zeruel85 said:
I cannot login to ssh with the lan cable connected between RPi2 and Net-Dimm, the shell won't appear. If I disconnect the lan cable, instantly the ssh shell appears.

So I think I cannot proceed with your hint.

Maybe there's a conflict between ethernet connection and wifi one? Would it help to write something inside /etc/network/interfaces?

EDIT: anyway, with ethernet cable disconnected, this is the result of 'python3 site.py' command (file attached).
Click to expand...
Ah, you created a routing loop. ETH0 needs to be on an ip outside of what your router uses for internet. For example my router gives out 192.168.1.0/24 ips so I used 192.168.0.0/24 for eth0. Once you move it the naomiweb interface should route out the proper wifi interface
 
Solved now, thanks for your hint!

Can I suggest a new feature, if possible? It'd be nice if the display shows a game uploaded from naomiweb.

EDIT: after playing some minutes with a game, naomiweb does not work anymore. It seems it goes to sleep or something like that, and it cannot load another game.
 
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Thanks sammargh! Was able to get this working with a Naomi 1 netboot setup using an Raspberry PI 3 B+ through built in wifi. Works great and the web interface is slick!
Seems that a lot of the other pre-compiled netboot .img files wont work on the RPI 3 B+ at the moment, most other builds just sit there with a red light on the pi with no progress into the OS
Just to outline a few general hints and things for people wanting to try this solution (im not an expert and i probably did some stuff wrong along the way or even below, but as some one who did a bunch of googling to get this going, just sharing how I approached/learned) :) :

  • Raspbian Lite OS is all command line based - default OS user: 'pi' , default password: 'raspberry'
  • When logged in as the 'pi' default user, use 'sudo' in front of all commands you run from command line when executing scripts or text editing on the RPI
  • All of the pinaomiforcewebtools-master files are read only on disk when copied/unzipped to the SD card from windows, and will need 'Write' permissions added.
  • To change the permissions so you can edit scripts and copy ROMs, you can recursively apply write/full permissions from the directory where the 'pinaomiwebforcetools-master' directory is located using this command - 'sudo chmod -R 777 pinaomiwebforcetools-master'
  • Network/Wifi settings are located in the 'install.sh' file - you will prob have to edit the file in the command line from the RPI using VI or some other editor. Editing in Windows before copying usually adds hidden characters and can break the script
  • Change the Wifi information in the 'install.sh' script to your own personal network and password that you use at home. This is for access to the PI, and is not used for a hotspot that the PI creates
  • The RPI will need to download updates from the internet for Raspbian Lite as a part of the install process, if you are using wifi and the 'install.sh' script doesnt have the correct user/pass to join a network this part will fail. Just update with correct information and the rerun the install.sh script
  • Make sure if you are using wifi and you would like to do file transfer for ROMs or access the naomiweb page from your phone/PC, that you connect the PI to the same network that your phone/PC is on, or has routing to the same network
  • Type ifconfig into the RPI command line to see the network settings and find the IP address for Wifi - wlan0 ex. 192.168.1.15 (your wifi DHCP will give you your own IP this is just an example IP)
  • Filezilla for SFTP works great to copy roms to the RPI SD card over the network (ex .192.168.1.15) . Just use the default Raspbian default user id/pass and select SFTP as the transfer method. Drag and drop files on screen from the left PC to the right RPI
  • Make sure your phone is connected to the same home Wifi network as the PI in order to pull up the webpage
  • Use the IP address of the RPI Wifi - wlan0 interface to access the web page where you will load games into the netdimm ex. "http:// 192.168.1.15"
  • If your RPI eth0 interface and Netdimm are on different IP subnets you will get a gateway error 33 on the Naomi. Just update either side to be on same subnet, and hopefully that resolves.
 
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I hadn't a chance to comment on this and apologies for the necropost but thank you!
nice work :) I don't mind that you lifted my repo at all, I'd been extremely lazy (and still am lazy) with the actual part of making things easy to install.
I would suggest snagging a newer version of naomiweb/db.sqlite if possible, along with the game images from http://www.github.com/tugpoat/ACNTBoot/ . I believe the DB itself should be backwards-compatible, except that the latest revisions are now missing the installed_games table. That will need to be re-added. It's pretty trivial to do so however.

Additionally, I stopped working on naomiweb and switched up to the repo linked above because well.... it's kinda crappy. I was going through some pretty serious depression at the time I was working on it, so I would definitely expect some stability issues like zeruel85 mentioned.
 
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