While trying hard not to watch videos of a class I paid for, I decided to see if I could set up ROS 2 Jazzy on Ubuntu 24.04 on my Pi5 real quick.
Although it has to be done with attached keyboard, display, and mouse (initially) the OS install went well, adding SSH access, and ROS 2 Jazzy even.
The last step is always to add Remote Desktop access VNC server. Full stop, no way any of the methods used for the last three Ubuntu setups, or the last three Pi OS setups resulted in a working VNC, nor any of the five âHow Toâ found on the web.
Why does this required functionality have to change with every new OS?
That was my first home computer - 8080 with a cassette-player storage initially loaded from MS-Basic on a 6" roll of paper-tape.
This VNC Server / Remote Desktop feature is something the Pi Foundation makes sure to solve for PiOS users on Raspberry Pi computers.
The fact that Canonical has been creating Ubuntu releases to run on the Raspberry Pi computers, has not meant they actually care that Raspberry Pi users have a working option from the âmyriad of third party software for remote desktop from the Raspberry Pi to the three major operating systemsâ.
There is still something to be said for my decision to run PiOS (Bookworm) on Daveâs Pi5 and put Ubuntu and ROS in a Docker container - no mater how painful that has been, there are lots of folk running PiOS on their Pi5, and very, very few running Ubuntu 24.04 on their Pi5 (Iâve seen evidence of two in the whole world.)
It doesnât look like Dave is going to be migrating anytime soon to ROS 2 Jazzy to run Ubuntu 24.04 native on his Pi5.
I really donât need to solve this problem, at this time at least. That also means I donât have to âcertifyâ an âInstall GoPiGo3 API on Ubuntu 24.04â method, yet.
No I was working at Hewlett-Packard in Colorado Springs, CO, where they encouraged the engineers to design and build things. I drew the mechanical drawings for the case and front panel, and also taped the screens for 8k x 8-bit memory boards. Another person designed and taped the motherboard and front panel with leds and switches to manually enter the boot loader until we added a EEPROM for that. The shops in the back folded the metal, and built the PC boards, and the parts department dispensed all the parts we needed. Eventually, we added paper tape drive, and cassette storage, then 8" floppy disk drives when MS-DOS came out.
I donât even think you have to compile - if you go with QBBasic.
Make quick on that - sudo apt install _____ any of the following:
pi@GoPi5Go:~/GoPi5Go/ros2ws $ apt-cache search basic | grep "BASIC"
basic256 - educational BASIC programming environment for children
brandy - BBC BASIC VI interpreter
bwbasic - Bywater BASIC Interpreter
python3-pcbasic - cross-platform emulator for the GW-BASIC family of interpreters (Python3)
python3-pcbasic-doc - cross-platform emulator for the GW-BASIC family of interpreters (doc)
sdlbasic - BASIC interpreter for game development
sdlbrt - BASIC interpreter for game development - runtime interpreter
yabasic - Yet Another BASIC interpreter
The MS Basic is âbasicallyâ () built from source for the 6502 experimental platform this person is using for a series of "this is the way a computer works âon the other side of the screenâ lessons.
The interesting thing is that this system (a breadboarded 6502 machine) has an attached LCD display as an âoutputâ device that can be addressed and used, (and some push buttons), as a demonstration of how computers communicate with the outside world.
As a part of the article âhacking MS Basicâ he adds specialized instructions to the generic Basic language specifically for the LCD display as a target for things like print statements.
Assuming that I install a particular Basic package, I am also assuming that I can also download the source code and âgrow my ownâ version with whatever modifications I want.
Where would the source code and necessary build-time libraries be installed? Is there a âstandardâ place for downloaded source packages to be placed?
One thought - possibly distant future? - is a âGoPiGo Basicâ - a way to program the robot in something other than Python.
P.S.
Do any of these have âcompiledâ Basic as an option? Basic as an interpreted language might be really slow.
No one is using the 6 available âother than Pythonâ languages to program the GoPiGo3, and not one person in 7 years has complained âWhy canât I program it it Basic?â
IDK. Basic was my third programming language (1) Fortran 1968, (2) COBOL 1968, (3) Dartmouth Basic 1969. I built an entire âCommercial Heating and Air Conditioning Duct Project Design and Costingâ system in MS-Basic in 1977-1978. NEVER AGAIN want to touch BASIC.
I really want to quit collecting building materials, and start building stuff with the pile I have. Donât quite understand your fascination with BASIC, at this point.
It was my first love, (on a DEC PDP-10 and an ASR-33 teletype between my junior and senior years of high school), and you never forget your first time.
Until I got an Atari 8-bit system and began programming 6502 assembler I hadnât done much of anything else.
. . . Except for FORTRAN, COBOL, and PL/I that I learned in college that is. I donât count them because you need a gazillion-dollar system. Basic was much more ubiquitous, easy to find, and much less expensive than some Big Iron System by IBM.
Programming languages are both interesting AND frustrating. Thereâs this fascination with âknowing how itâs doneâ and not having the Python Police dictating what you can and canât do.
The idea of being able to tweak the environment is interesting, and itâs a lot simpler than Cdim7, in the key of G. (AKA C++++++++, or whatever âthe latest thingâ happens to be this moment in time.)
) built from source for the 6502 experimental platform this person is using for a series of "this is the way a computer works âon the other side of the screenâ lessons.