OpenHAB Up - Getting My Bearings - Questions

[doundounba]

Hi all!

So I (finally) received my two 1Gb boards yesterday, along with a 16gb microSD with the OpenHAB image (and a few other items). Popped the wifi/bt board on one board, put it in the open acrylic case, put the microSD card in the slot, plugged in a USB keyboard and HDMI to the TV and then powered on...

Success!

Got a console login prompt on the TV, the OpenHAB server is up on port 8080 and I can ssh into the Pine64 from my main Linux box.  

Now, I'm just getting my bearings. I've been reading around, but please do forgive me if these questions are "basic".

1) As far as I can tell, OpenHAB is a set of services running on top of, for example, Linux. In this case, what I have received appears to be an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installation (with OpenHAB 2.0.0.b3 pre-installed). Is that correct?
2) If that is correct, does that mean that I can "sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop" to get a GUI going?
3) The wiki page for OpenHAB talks about running resize_rootfs.sh, but unless I am mistaken, the image I got already uses the 16gb of the card, no? In fact, I did run resize_rootfs.sh and I believe it exited with a message that there was nothing to do. Might want to update the Wiki I guess?

4) Perhaps a bit less easy to answer but... I also ordered (and received) the temperature and humidity sensor. I didn't realize there is not an i2c port on the Pine64 board itself, so I did not get Multi I2C Bus card. Can anyone provide a pointer about how to go about getting i2c communication going between the board and sensor? I'm prepared to buy a breadboard and some parts, but I'm a noob at all this...

Overall, fairly happy with the experience so far! Some hiccups in getting the hardware out (my package was untrackable and took about a month from shipping notice to me receiving something, and there's still no zwave on the horizon, AFAICT), but nothing unexpected given that this is a Kickstarter project...

Thanks for any pointers on my questions!

[kai]

Hi,

Glad to hear that you have it all up and running!

Short feedback on your questions:

1) Yes, as the wiki says, it is the standard Ubuntu image from Longsleep, so you can install anything further you like on it.
2) I would expect so, though I never tried it myself.
3) The wiki page is describing the image file itself - so anyone who flashes this image on a new SD card by himself has to execute this command. You are right that the shipped SD cards already use the full size, so this command is not necessary in that case, but it does not harm either ;-)
4) I cannot help on this, I am rather on the software than the hardware side...

Best regards,
Kai

[snoekieboe]

@kai,

I also received my Pine64 2Gb unit and am happily running the Ubuntu Openhab image on it.

I'm running into a few issue (whilst executing rules for example) therefore i would like to update to the latest snapshot.

I tried this but after copying the runtime directory to the Pine64 openhab won't start anymore.. exit code 126.

Could you please point me towards a proper procedure for running the latest snapshots on Pine 64?

Thanks

[PhotoSnake]

4) Perhaps a bit less easy to answer but... I also ordered (and received) the temperature and humidity sensor. I didn't realize there is not an i2c port on the Pine64 board itself, so I did not get Multi I2C Bus card. Can anyone provide a pointer about how to go about getting i2c communication going between the board and sensor? I'm prepared to buy a breadboard and some parts, but I'm a noob at all this...

I did the same thing. I wish there was something on the survey / backerkit that said to make sure you ordered the Multi I2C Bus card if you want anything additional to work.  
Either way, I am hoping someone can answer or maybe there is an alternative board that can be used.

[av1024]

4)  I didn't realize there is not an i2c port on the Pine64 board itself, so I did not get Multi I2C Bus card. Can anyone provide a pointer about how to go about getting i2c communication going between the board and sensor?

Look at Pi-2 connector description - pins 3 and 5 named I2C1_SDA and I2C1_SCL.
connect your sensor directly to pi-2 header:
  - "+5V" to pin 2 or 4
  - "SDA" to pin 3
  - "SCL" to pin 5
  - "GND" to pin 6

I can't find schematic for your sensor board, so may be you should connect 4.7k...10k pull-up resistors from SDA/SCL to +3.3V (pin 1)

That's all.
I don't know how to access this sensor from linux, so google about Si7021 linux kernel driver