Hi all. I recently purchased two Voyager 2s. I have been using TInypilot (non-pro) software with RPI4, self bought HDMI dongle and a USB-C data/power splitter from Tinypilot. Software-wise, I have my RPI4 set up exactly the way I want to. I want to replicate this with the Tinypilot PRO on the Voyager 2 but I cannot. It looks like the RPI OS that comes on the SD cards on the Voyager 2 is not the default one you download from www.raspberrypi.com but is a version of Debian. I've been trying now for 4 days to install VNC and Teamviewer on the Voyager 2 but am failing miserably. I NEED to access the Voyager's GUI for my use case (I need to access the web browser to change things on another machine that is not the one the Tinypilot is controlling.
Can I install TInypilot Pro on a stock rpi os installation?
- CCharles Hague @cghague2022-12-07 12:25:45.445Z
Hi Alan - thanks for your great question about the operating system on your TinyPilot device.
All variants of Raspberry Pi OS (previously known as Raspbian) are based on Debian. The TinyPilot Voyager 2 currently ships with the Buster version of Raspberry Pi OS Lite. We're working to update this to Bullseye, which is the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS Lite.
The key difference between Raspberry Pi OS and Raspberry Pi OS Lite is that Raspberry Pi OS Lite doesn't include a graphical interface. We use this version as the TinyPilot Voyager 2 is designed to be managed entirely through the web interface (and SSH if desired) and so a desktop environment isn't usually needed.
As there is no desktop environment on your TinyPilot device there is nothing for VNC or Teamviewer to display which is probably the key issue in this case. You might be able to install a desktop environment on your TinyPilot and run it in headless mode (i.e. with no physical display connected) but this isn't something we'd usually recommend.
- MIn reply tomikerotch⬆:Alan Chiu @mikerotch
Ah, it's the Lite OS, that makes sense.
So I did end up installing a desktop and got VNC and TeamViewer to work. The Voyagers are in a secure lab environment for work and are running fine now in headless mode with VNC and TeamViewer working. However, now when I go to the http://tinypilot, I get NO SIGNAL. I did do a lot of muddying around to get Xorg, lightdm and PIXEL installed and working, could I have inadvertently changed a setting to break the HDMI in on the Voyager? The PC that I am controlling does detect the HDMI out to the Voyager. What are some settings I can check? I know the KVM portion is still working because when I use the GUI to hit keys on the keyboard they do register on the PC.
- CIn reply tomikerotch⬆:Charles Hague @cghague2022-12-08 15:30:59.028Z
I'm sorry to hear that you're having issues with HDMI capture, although it's great to hear that you've got VNC and TeamViewer working!
The HDMI capture is handled by the "camera" interface and shows up as a V4L device, so anything that has been installed that might be trying to use a "camera" could be worth checking. There are many other services involved in obtaining and streaming the video though so it's difficult to narrow it down to anything in particular at this stage.
Can you please send me a link to your logs? You can do this by going to System, then Logs, then Get Sharable URL.
- MAlan Chiu @mikerotch
Here is the link
https://logs.tinypilotkvm.com/haG27OF5AFAIK, nothing I installed would use try and use the camera interface. Hopefully my logs can shed some light,
- CCharles Hague @cghague2022-12-08 16:22:47.722Z
Thanks for the quick response!
The logs show that TinyPilot can't access the HDMI capture device:
ustreamer[707]: -- INFO [15.430 stream] -- Using V4L2 device: /dev/video0 [...] ustreamer[707]: -- ERROR [15.431 stream] -- Can't access device: No such file or directoryCan you please confirm that HDMI capture was working before the graphical tools were installed? If so then it's most likely that one of the installed applications is locking or interfering with the V4L drivers.
- MIn reply tomikerotch⬆:Alan Chiu @mikerotch
Yes. I plugged it in as per the installation instructions on the site and it confirmed it was working before I started installing things. I'll do some troubleshooting of my own. If I can't fix it, I'll swap sd cards with the other voyager I have and see what happens. Thanks for your help.