Raspberry Pi issues - Kano
I'm trying out Emteria (evaluation mode) on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B (rev. a22082) and I'm noticing a few issues that I can't find a simple answer for. My Raspberry Pi was sold as part of the popular Kano Complete Kit, so my Raspberry Pi is mobile running on a battery pack and all my accessories are from Kano as well. I bought a new 32GB MicroSDHC UHC-1 memory card (100 MB/s, Speed Class Rating 10). Regular HDMI LCD display, not a touch screen display and sound not supported through HDMI. Under Kano OS (derived from Raspbian), the Raspberry Pi board and all accessories work correctly.
Anyway, these are the issues I'm seeing under Emteria in evaluation mode:
1) Can't get sound to work. Kano's speaker uses the audio out jack, as well as takes power from a USB port. I can't find settings anywhere in Android to change the audio output location.
2) Are there any special keys to send volume up/down and power? Besides modifying audio volume itself, and the only way to shut down is with the shutdown app (no way to hard reset?), if the /data partition gets corrupted from loss of power so that Emteria won't boot, not sure how to boot into recovery mode without these buttons/keys!
3) The "reset all data" in the backup/reset menu does not work! Clicking it is ignored. I have to use TWRP to wipe data and factory reset instead?
4) It seems that Raspberry Pi 3 has worse performance than mobile phones and tablets? I did not expect this. I am finding that some Android apps which are graphics intensive, such as games like Roblox, just won't work on Raspberry Pi because the CPU/GPU is overheating and the system freezes when running a game. YouTube works too only until the processor gets too hot and starts throttling speed. I added a heat sink on the processor, that helped a little, but it seems like Raspberry Pi really doesn't meet the Android system's minimum requirements and runs sluggishly as the processor heats up from being overloaded? Is this a normal experience?
5) I can't seem to change the Machine Name from 'unnamed' in Raspberry Pi/Emteria settings screen. Is that simply because I am using evaluation license?
6) There have been a few times already where the OS crashed and immediately re-boot. Often this has been in conjunction with extreme slow down due to overheating and trying to force quit the application causing the heat or jump to main menu. I don't think my Raspberry Pi is malfunctioning, but do you have any suggestions for testing memory or access/diagnosis of boot/crash logs?
7) Do battery monitoring apps like BatteryBot work on Raspberry Pi? As far as I can tell, Emteria always reports battery full and charging, would be nice to enable battery percentage feature. Data usage is another feature that could be helpful if connected to a mobile hotspot.
That's all I can think of at the moment, there might still be a minor thing or two, but otherwise Emteria OS works excellent and represents a great development effort!
CP
Comments
I can only answer some questions:
4) Yes, this is normal. Just compare your mobile phone's and the RPi3's specification sheets (specifically the CPU and RAM).
5) You can use RPi's UART interface to receive logs while emteria is running.
First of all, Android is not Linux. It is typically built for a specific device like a smartphone or tablet, where the used hardware (like screen resolution, audio output or camera interface) is never replaced by a different model. In these terms, Android is somewhat unflexible when it comes to detecting new peripherals and re-configuring itself. We are working on this, but there is still a long way to go.
1) Sorry, but no. We don't support any external sound cards for now.
2) Those are multiple things
- Because of my explanation above, we don't want to support "a" GPIO button extension, since it won't be compatible to other hats. To be honest, we didn't invest any time into finding a proper one and testing it. Do you have a suggestion for a hat that might be a good choice for most of the users?
- I am always turning off my device by pulling the power cable and I had not have a single data corruption in the last 5-6 years.
3) Yes, sorry for that. There is several interfaces between TWRP and Android settings still missing in emteria.OS. We are working on this.
4) It is not the YouTube, but rather OpenGApps who kill the performance. Check the "New Pipe" application from F-Droid.
5) Yes, this is changeable from our website if you have a license for the respective device.
6) See (4) and Habimm's answer (you will need to enable UART first).
7) Again, the first step would be supporting "a" battery pack, which won't be compatible with others. But it is definitely a step we need to go. Do you know if there is a standard Linux interface for checking the current battery percentage?
Hi Kalkov - thanks for your quick response!
For #1 - I don't think I have an external sound card. I have an audio out speaker jack port of Raspberry Pi. While it also plugs into USB, I believe Kano did that just for power to light up the speaker, maybe to increase the volume too. So why am I getting no sound out of Emteria? I think it's sending sound through the HDMI (which has no speaker), but your site says that is not the default?
For #2 - I got a corruption of the data partition on day #2 from the battery running out, and got hung on the Emteria boot screen after TWRP couldn't repair it too! It was running way too slow with the bad file system. But Ubuntu on the PC fixed the ext4 file system errors on the SD card partition no problem and then it started right up!
As far as special keys, your competition (the unofficial Lineage Android port to Raspberry Pi) uses F1-F5 for the volume and power buttons, and I don't think that is the GPIO button extension that you're talking about either. I think the function keys work well for this purpose too.
For #4 - Is there a way to uninstall Google Play Store / Service? Yes, I used OpenGapps and need Play Services for Play Store in-app purchases and paid app subscription support, but I'd be fine trying a different method to get these functions if it would work and help performance! Never heard of "New Pipe" before.
For #7 - I never really used Linux on a laptop to know about battery status indicators, but I thought that worked out of the box in the GUI on Ubuntu?!
Again, you've got a great product and it works amazingly well, these issues aside. My biggest problem is #1 (audio), hope there's an easy way to fix that!
Much appreciation,
CP