Let's get some Soma FM DefCon station playing for some background music.

- Community Supported Online Radio for Hacking!
https://somafm.com/defcon/

Clean up my workspace real quick...

Going to try with a base install of Raspbian Stretch Lite from:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

Updating raspbian, configuring the pi for US localization, setting up SSH, etc.

Changing the Debian repo from 'stretch' to 'buster' within apt.

AHH SHIT!!! WE'RE IN TESTING!!!

apt update && apt full-upgrade

And.... I'm going to go grab a coke while that's going on.

Ok.... that *seemed* to work...

Creating user 'phablet' and deleting the 'pi' user.

Done.

Added Plasma specific repos.

And now installing Plasma specific tools.

Fuck... that's a gig and a half's worth of data.

Glad I'm on ethernet.

Ok!!!

That seemed to work!!!

Everything is working on my monitor...

Let's see if I can get it working on my 5inch touchscreen.

Ok. Touchscreen is working, but layout is landscape.

Need to change it to portrait, but the typical adding "display_rotate = 1" to /boot/config.txt is not working.

Going to try using xrandr to rotate the screen.

k... a couple of things.

Attempting to configure the display via raspbian's /boot/config.txt is overridden by KDE Plasma Mobile settings (I'm not sure where yet.)

You *can* configure things in config.txt, such as GPU memory allocation, just the display settings are changed once KDE Plasma loads.

Using the @kde Plasma Mobile GUI display settings to rotate brings up the error "Sorry, your configuration could not be applied. Common reasons are that overall screen size is too big..." etc.

Screen size is 800x480 on a 5in monitor.

"Enabled more displays than supported by your GPU" doesn't fit it, because I only have one monitor.

Time to duckduckgo this...

@kde

May be an issue with kscreen.

Running kscreen-console via ssh and it's outputing a json file
(~/$ kscreen-console json)

Wonder how I edit that json file... where is it?

Ah... kscreen-doctor is a thing!

K.

damnit... my monitor name has a space in it. I FUCKING HATE SPACES!!!!

This is gonna shit over everything isn't it...?

well....

Running:

kscreen-doctor output."ADA HDMI-A-1-1".rotation.left

*seems* to work. The json rotation is changed from 1 to 2.

But nothing on the screen changes.

A reboot doesn't do anything and the json is changed back to "rotation": 1

Hmmm....

@ng0 - I haven't! But I'll check it out!!!

I've basically got a 5inch tablet that can run telephone apps over wifi right now: https://www.tinker.sh/project-synopsis-raspberry-pi-smart-phone/

My ultimate goal is to get a DIY smart phone that can connect to LTE / 4G and run a modern OS with Apps (e.g. @kde Plasma Mobile, @Ubports, or @Purism PureOS).

@tinker
May the Debian upgrade gods be on your side!

@tinker
xrandr? thats brave

@tinker I thought xrandr didn’t work on pi? And display rotate only works over hdmi, I think.

@ajroach42 - yeah.... I dunno. it's not working right now... so maybe you're right.

The KDE GUI settings allows monitor control, but it's not allowing me to rotate the screen. Giving me an error.

The config.txt rotate setting isn't affecting the actual output.

The touchscreen is over HDMI. The monitor is HDMI, and the touch overlay acts as a USB device.

I'm trying to give the GPU more memory to see if that helps.

@tinker I was only able to get mine to rotate on reboot, and that was done via the config you mentioned.

@ajroach42 - Yeah, I've gotten that to work on basic raspian... it's not working now after I've installed all the KDE plasma stuff.

Maybe I need to try again....

@tinker which screen? Does it really support a higher resolution?

@j_angliss - No, the screen only supports 800x480 (or 480x800). And that's what it's set to. It is working in landscape mode right now. Just trying to get it to flip to portrait.

@tinker gotcha. Read it as you were expecting more. Odd it's not picking up rotation settings.

@tinker

HEADSHOT!

@tinker

OK, so maybe more of a footshot?

@TheGibson - Yeah. It seems to change the config file... but I'm looking at the screen and not seeing anything different.

Mind you, I'm ssh'ing into it to change the config. Wonder if that's why. Does ssh create a different desktop session than a locally logged in user?

I dunno.

Brain hurting now.

@tinker @thegibson if you're desperate to find out the file it's being saved to, I suggest strace + grep on calls to open or write.

@rook @TheGibson - Think I found the json file itself... but it seems to be overwritten by something else.

Yeah, may use strace. Cheers!

Ok... opened a console locally (using my tiny little 5inch screen!) and it does appear that ssh'ing into it opens a different "desktop environment" insofar as using kscreen-doctor doesn't affect the local settings.

Maybe. I'm learning this shit by doing... don't see much documentation. But that's probably my inability to use internet search engines.

Hey!!! I got something to change on my desktop!

I tried to set rotation to 'left'...

And now the entire screen disappeared.

Small victories / defeats?

@tinker

It's been a long time since I've needed to differentiate between SSH and desktop user... but I know it uses the same profile on Ubuntu...

@TheGibson - Yeah. This is wonky. Hmm...

that said, the fact that the only real issue I've run into during this whole thing is screen rotation is fine!

Everything else seems to work... if I want to use a phone that's always in landscape mode! :P

@tinker
Immutable bit!
@TheGibson

@feonixrift @TheGibson - Argh!!!!

@tinker @kde Plasma has this problem on desktop too sometimes. Like some days I'll go to work and turn on my computer and my monitor will be upside down for no good reason and I can't flip it back without rebooting half a dozen times

@SwooshyCueb @kde - Huh. :( Alright.

@tinker Um, it's "some coke". Coke, like sand or snow, are uncountable :-)

@m4iler - lol! A "soda" or a "pop" or a "soda pop" or a "carbonated beverage" then :P

@tinker love that station when I need to focus and work

@woland - Same. Mostly non-lyrics, plays and moves into the background. Never distracts. Kampf and the other DJs do a damned good job.

@Ubports - This is a goal of mine! I’ve been following your project for a while! Having Ubuntu Touch on a Pi with a working LTE/4G baseband is my ideal!

What’s the best way to coordinate with your project?

So far I’ve only been lurking and watching and reading your blogs/audiocaste,Q&A.

@tinker great, hope to here from you soon!

@Jbb - No, I didn’t notice that! Thanks! I’ll play around with it, thanks!

@Jbb - I appreciate the offer for help! I only had one issue with loading plasma mobile and that was rotating the screen. I’ll mess with your new repo and see if I can get it working. If that doesn’t work, I’ll reach out with more details and see if it’s something you can help with. I don’t want to burden you with my problems though! 😜