Eyepiece - Part 2 - The initial hoops and hurdles.

Before anything else, it was necessary to set up the computer and to find out how the camera worked.

I actually bought the camera module a year ago, but hadn't managed to get around to trying it out.

I intend to do a clean install later, and will go through the full set up again, this time taking notes and screen-shots. The full set up will be published, eventually.

So ...
I set up the SBC (Single Board Computer) and started it up. Now, a long time ago, I got fed up with a monitor, keyboard and mouse attached to every computer I used, and so I discovered the joys of the Remote Desktop.

For Microsoft Windows, there is a program (creatively named Remote Desktop) that will access a Windows computer as though you were sat at the desk it is on. Remote desktop doesn't work for non-Windows computers, so I went to start my copy of Xming, which does the same job but with a Linux computer at the other end of the network. Well, that had disappeared last time I rebuilt my laptop, so I had to re-install. Xming is available for free.

http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/


Now, getting two computers talking together when they are running very different operating systems is a bit of a chore, and I needed to make some changes using the command line interface (you remember DOS, don't you - this is similar, but very different.) - for that I needed an old friend called PuTTY, another fine piece of free software designed specifically for that purpose.

PuTTY: A Free Telnet/SSH Client

A complicated hour or two later, including an update of the whole operating system via the Internet, and I had remote access to the Raspberry Pi desktop.

Now, I could install the driver software, in the form of Python libraries.

Python is a programming language with which I am only passing familiar, so I followed the instructions in the tutorials. I managed to capture an image or two (dog's nose, the wall, my right foot etc.) without ever seeing the preview.

Down in the notes there were words to the effect that the preview image is only displayed on the primary display hardware. This required a monitor with an HDMI interface, and a suitable cable.

Some plugging and rebooting later, and I had an excellent view of the cables in which the SBC nestled. A good picture that moved in real time (unlike a traditional web-cam or other networked camera). It even captures still images when told!

Then the LED on the camera came on (as normal) during a simple script test, and the program hung.

Reboot, unplug and re-connect. check everything and then check the website. It seems that the magic smoke that the camera runs on had escaped. [Insert appropriate imprecations and incantations here.] So, I need to order a new camera module.

Undeterred, I start work on the other bits of the set up, and notice that the primary display has gone blank. Cue a bit more cussing while I tried to discover how to disable the screen saver. That took a couple more downloads and a strange discovery - it is impossible to disable the screen saver on the log-in screen on Debian. You also have to install the screen saver software in order to disable it on a user profile.

The solution turned out to be a bit of editing in order to log in a dummy user when the computer starts up. It only took me 48 hrs to figure out how to do this reliably.

Thank goodness for Google and people willing to share their expertise!

After that it took a few minutes to share folders from the SBC to the network using SAMBA (which meant another package download and install).

Next: Adventures in accessing files across the network.