NaoPi - a Raspberry Pi as Naomi loader

[Paolo63]

ehm, what's applepi ? have you a link to it ? is it for apple ?
anyway, if you've read somewhere it's the correct think to do to put an image on an sd (the equivalent of the dd command in unix) then it's ok and for sure renaming the file does'n create problems.
But it's simple to test if the image is well written on the sd card. Put the sd on the raspberry pi and connect it to a monitor via hdmi and a keyboard. Then switch on. With a correctly image on the sd rhe raspi should boot in about 10 seconds to a login prompt.
try it, I'm here

[geotrig]

will give it a go in the next week or 2 and will report back

[RoZioN]

my dimm was old but I will upgrade it tomorrow, Ill let you know how it works, also so you can add an OSX option to your install guide

[Paolo63]

will give it a go in the next week or 2 and will report back

sadly I'll have to return my netdimm in about 10 days, hope someone will test it before...

[Paolo63]

my dimm was old but I will upgrade it tomorrow, Ill let you know how it works, also so you can add an OSX option to your install guide

how will you upgrade it ? via transfergame or you have to use a gdrom ?
So are you a mac user ? And this applepi thing is a software to write images ? Do you've a link at it ? I'm sorry but I've no experience on OSX

[RoZioN]

http://www.tweaking4all.com/hardware/ra ... -pi-baker/"

[Paolo63]

http://www.tweaking4all.com/hardware/ra ... -pi-baker/

Thanks ! Nice software it seems, and yes, I think it's the right one for this job
If you can, now try to connect the raspi to a monitor/tv set and let it boot with the sd card you've flashed. You should at least see the login screen, text, no gui.
Then you'll have to wait for the net dimm firmware upgrade

Thanks, good to know

[Capaneus]

I was totally working on the exact same thing!! I called mine PiforceTools:

https://github.com/capane-us/piforcetools

[Paolo63]

I was totally working on the exact same thing!! I called mine PiforceTools:

https://github.com/capane-us/piforcetools

Nice... I've though to use a classical lcd and buttons shield but I preferred to have something super simple, minimalist and cheap, so I've buit an image who run a super dummy dhcp server to give an ip address to the net dimm and then automatically load the game.
Mine it's an image, so no linux for the end user, you write the image and you're done. And it's faster than a typical image to load
The games are on an usb memory and this is easy for everyone to do.
The game selection is automatic, it's the first one on the memory. If you want to change the game make it the first, alphabetically. And if you're an "hacker" build a simple and cheap dip switch selector. I didn't want the people to buy other stuff.
I had a different approach, I wanted something brainless

But honestly I wanted to learn how to build a raspi image and then I liked to study a little the dhcp protocol... I did this just to have something to practice in

By the way, only a couple of things... you wrote it's needed a crossover cable, but isn't the raspi ethernet autosensing ?
And if you want you can even have no security pic installed. There is an infinite loop pinging at the net dimm, after the loading, and it does the trick. It's something you can find on the naomi_boot.py script here around on the net.

I don't think I'll build a version with lcd, I only hope it's working flawlessy for the others as is

Thanks, hope you'll give it a try... you could really help is something doesn't work

Paolo

[mchay]

Is this not able to run on a model A with 256MB RAM?

[joeks]

Is this not able to run on a model A with 256MB RAM?

It probably has more to do with model A not having a Network port I think.

[Paolo63]

Is this not able to run on a model A with 256MB RAM?

It probably has more to do with model A not having a Network port I think.

you're right

[joeks]

I received my Raspberry Pi today so time to get started!

As you can see here, I have the prepared the SD-card and the USB-stick (formatted FAT32).
Put the Naopi image on the SD-card with the mac application ApplePi (Thanks for the tip RoZion )


Tested the Raspberry Pi with the installed SD-card and it boots into the login prompt.
So that should be good, right? Does the loading of the game.bin happens in the background, without any on-screen prompts?


Prior to testing the Rapsberry Pi with my Triforce, I tested netbooting again with my normal method to make sure it was still working.
My Macbook dual booted into Windows 8, going into the command prompt and typing "transfergame 192.168.1.2 mariokartgp2.bin".
Worked fine.


BUT,
When I have the Raspberry Pi connected to my netbooting Triforce it won't start transferring the game though.
Triforce boot screen stays static, so no "loading a program" screen or so.
I have set up my Triforce with a static IP (192.168.1.2). Is that a problem?

By the way, here a photo of my Triforce firmware version.


Thanks, any help much appreciated!

[Paolo63]

Great ! Super informative
First of all the image seems ok. Nothing will be shown on the screen during loading. It's done all in background.
It can be shown and I do for testing but you've to login (username root and no password) and then kill the python process and start another one. But this is for testing purpose and I hope not to have to do it with you

Then yes, a fixed ip address is the problem. As I've wrote on the instructions you've to set the net dimm for dhcp, it means remote enable on the network configuration menu. You don't have to input any ip address. The NaoPi has a super dummy dhcp server waiting the netdimm to ask for an address. It gives the address and then start the loading.

So, please, configure your netdimm/triforce as remote enable, reboot everything and let me know, thanks

Paolo

p.s. I'm on the chat now if you want to "talk"

[joeks]

Thanks for the help Paolo, but sadly can't get it to work yet.
Enabled "remote" and not entered a specific IP-address but nothing starts to load.
Can test it on a Naomi with netdimm too, that's the next thing I will try.

It doesn't matter which is powered on first, or does it (Raspberry Pi or game system)?
I mean, I assume the Raspberry Pi software is checking for the game system until it finds one?
So there can't be timings-issues in booting both devices or something like that?

[Paolo63]

Thanks for the help Paolo, but sadly can't get it to work yet.
Enabled "remote" and not entered a specific IP-address but nothing starts to load.
Can test it on a Naomi with netdimm too, that's the next thing I will try.

It doesn't matter which is powered on first, or does it (Raspberry Pi or game system)?
I mean, I assume the Raspberry Pi software is checking for the game system until it finds one?
So there can't be timings-issues in booting both devices or something like that?

No no, there is no timing problem, it doesn't matter who's started first.
Can you please come to the otaku chat so we can talk ?

[Paolo63]

Pleeeease, come to the chat, i'll help you better there...
Have you created the "naopi" forlder on the usb ?
Have you put on this folder your game image ?
Is the game image ending with a lowercase .bin ?

[geotrig]

cant find the pi i had ,think it might have been version 1 anyway not that i ever used it.... ordered a new one so will give it a test on chihiro and naomi when it arrives

[Paolo63]

Great things, finally I've found that fu**ing switch I needed to flip to have my triforce netboting !
It's on the media board, inside the triforce !
And the NaoPi loader works without problems
But I've an old firmware version and loading virtua striker 4 it tells me I'm out of date and to go to the game test menu ... and there there is an update system item ! Great
I know how to spend my saturday... studying... but now I hope to make joeks happy we'll see

[Paolo63]

Hi joeks, are you here around
First of all I've discovered where are the switches to transform the triforce type 3 from gdrom to net bootable. But I'm sure you already know it, but I didn't ! Argh...
Anyway, now I've tested NaoPi with my Triforce type 3 and it works
First of all yes, if you switch the triforce on and off without waiting too much time (who knows, minutes... ?) it can happens the game is being loaded without displaying anything apart the triforce logo. I've seen it. You can still know it's loading looking at the fast blinking led on the ethernet socket of the triforce.
So, the only modification to do to the actual NaoPi version (I'll release a new one later after your test ) is to put a delay between the dhcp server and the game loading. If I give the address to the triforce and then immediately start to load, sometimes the loader can't see the triforce and crash.
So, if you've still a little time to test it you can restore the original image you downloaded and then edit the naopi.py
Log in with root and no password - cd naopi - vi naopi.py
Here you've to add at the beginning of the file a new import: "import time"
then between the line "logger.debug("(dummy) dhcp server ended")" and the line "# game upload" add this new line: "time.sleep(5)"
Save and quit and reboot everything as usual.
By the way, I've left the export region

Hope to hear you soon, thanks

Paolo