Anyone Willing To Modernize The GoPiGo3 Python Installation?

GoPiGo
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While the GoPiGo3 has avoided the “continuous improvement” philosophy that sends us near daily application updates on our phones, the operating systems supported by the Raspberry Pi at the heart of a GoPiGo3 robot have blossomed into a vendor support staff nightmare.

Over the last seven years, I have been reasonably successful at hacking the installation of the GoPiGo3 software stack (hardware interface and examples) for both Raspberry Pi OS versions and Ubuntu versions. Along the way, I have seen more and more warnings about deprecated software in the Python API build process - such as:

/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/setuptools/_distutils/cmd.py:66: SetuptoolsDeprecationWarning: setup.py install is deprecated.
!!

        ********************************************************************************
        Please avoid running ``setup.py`` directly.
        Instead, use pypa/build, pypa/installer or other
        standards-based tools.

        See https://blog.ganssle.io/articles/2021/10/setup-py-deprecated.html for details.
        ********************************************************************************

!!
  self.initialize_options()
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/setuptools/_distutils/cmd.py:66: EasyInstallDeprecationWarning: easy_install command is deprecated.
!!

        ********************************************************************************
        Please avoid running ``setup.py`` and ``easy_install``.
        Instead, use pypa/build, pypa/installer or other
        standards-based tools.

        See https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/917 for details.
        ********************************************************************************

!!
  self.initialize_options()
running bdist_egg
running egg_info
creating DI_Sensors.egg-info

Aside: GoPiGo OS is provided as a complete, working, pre-installed environment sufficient for most users.

Should anyone be willing to accept the mission to modernize the Python GoPiGo3 software installation, this will be a useful guide:

https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/guides/modernize-setup-py-project/

From the guide:

Screenshot 2025-05-04 at 8.42.54 AM
Screenshot 2025-05-04 at 8.42.54 AM1622×552 97.9 KB

Screenshot 2025-05-04 at 8.39.04 AM
Screenshot 2025-05-04 at 8.39.04 AM1648×558 56.5 KB

As mentioned, I have managed to hack a sufficient for me install but the use of a 21 year old installation package makes the future look increasingly dark for the GoPiGo3.

I don’t hold much hope that a code warrior will swoop in to accept this mission, but I wanted to offer an insight into a place they could contribute to extending the life of the GoPiGo3 robot for future OS releases.

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I am currently researching methods to do just that using ChatGPT as a research and planning tool, though this is still in the planning stages.

I am also researching an AI based robotic command-and-control system for the GoPiGo-3 that will run on the native OS, updated to Bookworm if possible.

ROS is also on my radar as a possible way to accomplish it.

My current research is primarily in the planning stages, being interrupted by both tax preparation and preparing to be admitted to the hospital for my knees again.

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3

New Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm released this week, but “time waits for no one”

this is probably the final release of Raspberry Pi OS which is based on Debian ‘bookworm’, before Debian ‘trixie’ is released this summer.

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Suggest to power down that RADAR. No one needs ROS on GoPiGo3, (and ROS wants Ubuntu which no one needs on GoPiGo3 as well.)

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I am interested in researching relative difficulty.

My basic assumption is that this is achievable in both systems - it’s more like the relative ease of implementation.

My main focus (up to this point) has been on the “stock” OS because that’s what comes in the box, whereas ROS requires a whole new build.

However, if it turns out that ROS provides a better platform that is as easy as GPGOS, that might be the way to go.

It is also important to note that upgrading/porting the GoPiGo OS stack to the latest-and-greatest OS/utilities is a central feature of my research as many of the things I will need to use are not/poorly implemented in Buster, et. al.

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