retrolasered

Was much bigger than I expected.

I remember the last time I tried to find a cheap webcam that works on linux, I gave up pretty quickly and just used my laptop for video calls. Saw this guide to build one with a zero 2, had a spare board in my parts drawer so thought why not. I'm surprised by the quality of it. I've been using it for work meetings.

Can anyone suggest a plug and play USB mic for my raspberry pi (that you've used and know it works). I've managed to avoid work meetings on teams for a long time but there's one I can't get out of and my laptop broke so I'm computing only on my pi for the time being. Don't really care for webcam, noone needs to see me, but I need to be able to speak to them.

I was diagnosed 7 years ago as autistic, though I didnt realise at the time it was a diagnosis, I was informed a few years later that what I thought was a specialists opinion was actually a formal diagnosis. But due to family history, my adhd was addressed first. They were supposed to refer me to autism specialist after the adhd stuff but due to mistakes I got discharged and it took a few years and a few phone calls to correct the mistake. So I knew I have adhd, I understood I was a bit autistic. Fast forward to this week, I got a call after my assessment, and I score extremely high for autism. I was a bit surprised by that, as I function mostly quite well in my day to day despite some things maybe being a little harder for me than other people. My specialist explained that an ability to function does not measure someones level of autism. So now I guess im very autistic.

Its bittersweet. Its helpful to know and im being given resources and access to groups for coping and one that helps you stay in work - which is the important one for me as before my current job where my manager has been very patient and understanding, I have always had a lot of problems with employment. Im still not quite processing it fully, but Ive felt some hints inside myself that this does also make me feel a bit sad, but I probably wont be sure of that until later on one night when I cant get to sleep due to delayed processing.

Groups like this and others have been a big help throughout my diagnoses journey, and alongside reading about autism research and speaking with people in these groups, ive learnt a lot about myself and ways to manage my daily life and lessen the impact of everything.

I still feel like a bit of an imposter when seeking help, as I am very high functioning, and can pass as quite intelligent in most settings, and working at a job where I often encounter low functioning and even non verbal poung people, its hard to feel like I deserve to ask for help in the first place.

Pi4 1gb, posters on left with feh, info board on right which is a html file running on chromium

Instructables sucks and my github's a mess, so I'm just going to post this here, so Lemmy exclusive I guess..

Before starting you will need an rpi 4b, after monitoring over ssh I'm pretty sure a 2gb model will be enough, the RAM usage didn't really get much past 1.7gb, I used an old 4gb that used to be my projects centre. Cooling is advised, you can overclock and get the performance boost that way too which helps a lot with 1080p, although still don't expect to get near that with youtube, go with piped instead. Ethernet and an overclock will get the best performance, although 720p on most sites seems to run okay over wifi. You will want to run from USB storage too, I'm using the M.2 SSD base with the argon ONE case, but I tested on a USB 3.0 thumbdrive and results were pretty similar.

Start by flashing the latest 64-bit raspi lite OS to a usb device. You may need to update the EEPROM if you haven't already in order to boot from USB. Take advantage of the rpi imager settings here to enable SSH and change the hostname so you can tell it apart from the 6 other pi's you have running around your house, if using a different imager then don't forget to include the SSH file you may need it on the next step.

After initial boot, the screen may black out, using the same image I had this happen with the USB SSD, but not the USB thumb drive. If it blacks out then ssh in and vi or nano into /boot/firmware/config.txt and comment out and add the following lines:

#dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d
dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d

Now that the screen is working you can log into the session, and make the usual prayer sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y followed by a sudo reboot for luck. And next install KDE Plasma; I originally went for kde-plasma-desktop as its the lighter install, but it kept hanging at boot, you might have more luck, but expect to start again if it fails.

sudo apt install kde-standard

After that another reboot for luck. Then we need to activate the sddm login manager service, and tell raspi OS that we want it to boot into GUI on the next boot:

sudo systemctl enable sddm
sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

And reboot again. It should now boot into plasma, and the first thing you should do is disable all the desktop effects; older KDE plasma guides suggest to disable compositor, but the session defaults to wayland unless you tell it not to, and wayland can't run without the compositor - I've noticed no major differences between X11 and wayland myself in this use case (don't believe the hype). [edit: have found that disabling compositor in X causes screen tearing on video, so just disable desktop effects but leave compositor on]

Now the effects are disabled, and if you have your cooling set up, now is a good time to overclock, so back into /boot/firmware/config.txt. I just went with the following:

# Overclock
over_voltage=6
arm_freq=2000
gpu_freq=700

Next we can install the other bits we need:

sudo apt install chromium-browser rpi-chromium-mods plasma-bigscreen

If you want to watch DRM services like netflix you will need another package thats not included in lite:

sudo apt install libwidevinecdm0

KDE connect and an android phone make the perfect remote control, connect should already be included in the KDE install. But firewall suggested, with connect and ssh rules:

sudo apt install ufw
sudo ufw allow 1714:1764/udp
sudo ufw allow 1714:1764/tcp
sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
sudo ufw enable

Next open chromium, add the extensions you want, and "install" your "web apps".

Now open up KDE settings again, select Startup and Shutdown > Login Screen (SDDM), and then click the behaviour button at the bottom and set plasma to log in automatically and change the session to bigscreen, password to confirm, and it should prompt you to set a password for the keychain, I set a blank password because I want other people to be able to use the tv. Also disable power saving, or at least getting sent back to the login screen after sleep.

Done! Reboot and enjoy!

Some optional polish:

plasma bigscreen is designed to work one window at a time, so if you minus a window without a keyboard you've essentially lost it, so in settings you can remove the titlebar buttons for max/min and hide and just leave the one to close the window with.

Xscreensaver has a pretty cool analog tv effect screensaver that will cycle through images in a folder and display them with various tv static effects:

sudo apt install xscreensaver xscreensaver-data-extra

[edit: it looks like this version of bigscreen doesn't suport KDE login scripts so xscreensaver for now is a non-starter. Hopefully debian gets plasma 5.26 soon and this will then work]

[added:] Not quite full screen: KDE's window management isn't quite perfect, and full screen often falls short by 1 pixel on the right and bottom borders (despite any window rules you might add), this can be an irritant when a bright wallpaper sits behind whatever you're watching. Easiest fix is to set a dark-edged wallpaper. The newer bigscreen lets you use the kde settings which is nice as you can set the wallpaper to plain colour black, but the debian version you have to use the built in wallpaper settings app found in the settings menu on the home screen. It will only show you the wallpapers that are installed, so download your dark wallpaper, then move it to the wallpaper folder and it will show up in the wallpaper changer application:

sudo mv ~/Downloads/<wallpaper> /usr/share/wallpaper/

Had been waiting for my pi 5 argon case which got lost in the post before I could set this up. Ive been tinkering with an old SFF PC running arch over the last few months to get a "smart tv" set up going that im happy with, now ive condensed it down into a little debian box that uses a fraction of the electricity. Happy days.

Da balloons

I'm 35, I do okay. I mumble when I'm shy, and when I'm not into it, i.e. the pleasantries over the counter in a shop. I had the 'you talk like a robot' comments all through school. I know I speak a certain way and I'm mostly okay with it.

I bought a coffee this morning before getting the train into work. I did my usual awkward mumbling, I ordered the flat white with all the elocution I could muster so as to avoid repeating myself - I hate repeating myself - but the rest was mumbled and just audible enough for them to know that I asked to pay by card and that I was thanking them as I left.

There were two clerks, a small independent shop. The male clerk, upon me saying thanks and turning to walk to the door, gave an exaggerated mumble, which made the girl working with him laugh. I ignored it and left, but afterwards it really griped on me.

The only way to communicate with the establishment is by instagram, so I set up an account and messaged the business account (they own 3 shops in my local area). The person followed it up; naturally the pair working there said that it never happened. The owner has invited me back tomorrow, when he will be working with the male clerk, to receive an apology. I don't think I want to go. Should I go? I'm not sure what outcome I wanted, I think I just wanted to speak out about it.

I appreciate that the quiet hours in the shop are boring, and they need to make their own entertainment, but he could have just waited for me to leave the shop before he made his joke - although I do understand that to impress the girl it must done to me brazenly, for the shock factor required to make such a witless joke funny.

I'm not quite sure why this has aggravated me so much today, but it has. I can normally roll my eyes at this kind of stuff or laugh it off, but it really wound me up. Maybe because I am a paying customer and expect that in engaging in this process I am not going to encounter this kind of playground mentality.